The papain-like protease encoded by the 2019-nCoV Wuhan coronavirus is very highly homologous to bat and SARS coronaviral PL pro . We used SARS CoV PL pro crystallographic templates to prepare homology models of the 2019-nCoV PL pro in both ligand-bound and apo forms. Molecular dynamics simulations indicate most molecular motion is contained in the N-terminal Ubl and C-terminal zinc finger domains, and also support the thesis that zinc is required for structural integrity of the protease.