Scientists find killer chemical for virus behind SARS and MERS

[AussieNeil]

"A team of European researchers has identified a novel compound that stops coronaviruses from replicating. The study, published in PLOS Pathogens today, also pinpoints the juncture in the virus' life cycle when the compound works, suggesting vulnerable stages in virus replication that might be attacked by different antiviral compounds."

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"Currently, there’s no specific antiviral treatment that’s effective against coronaviruses."

theconversation.com/scienti...

Note that the authors of the article emphasise their discovery.... "is only the very first step towards an approved drug for therapeutic use in animals or humans."

The above article provides a short history of coronaviruses with specific reference to SARS and MERS, which kill about 10% and 30% of their victims respectively and explains how these diseases spread between people. it seems that the spread of MERS could be stopped by simply hand washing...

Neil

[country76]

I found this article you posted from 7 years ago. I wonder what happened to their discovery?

[AussieNeil Administrator in reply to country76]

Per the referenced article, "While the discovery of a compound with promising antiviral activity is certainly important, the transition from lab to treatment of human illness is a long and uncertain one." Some good examples of this are the development timelines for two well known CLL drugs. Rituximab arose from early 1980s research and was approved for CLL treatment in 2010. Venetoclax arose from late 1980s research and was approved for CLL treatment in 2019! Also, when SARS-CoV-1 and MERS fizzled out, funding dried up for further development of promising drugs and vaccines.

With respect to the K22 discovery, per the discussion section of the May 2020 preprint paper, Identification of five antiviral compounds from the Pandemic Response Box targeting SARS-CoV-2, biorxiv.org/content/10.1101... (with my emphasis)

"We used the nucleoside analogue Remdesivir as a reference compound against SARS-CoV-2 and observed an IC50 of 1.842 µM and a CC50 of >50 µM on Vero-E6 cells, in agreement with previous studies describing the inhibitory effect of Remdesivir against SARS-CoV-2 [8]. In line with this, we also identified Chloroquine as a potent antiviral compound against SARS-CoV-2, which has also been shown to effectively inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro [8]. In contrast, K22 neither inhibited SARS-CoV nor SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 1) replication at low concentrations [12]. This exemplifies the robust reproducibility of the antiviral screen presented here and its consistency with previously published reports. Further, it establishes Remdesivir and chloroquine as reliable reference compounds during antiviral efficacy assessments of novel compounds against SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses."

Note that while this is a preprint paper, it does point out a common difficulty of translating in vitro results to in vivo success. "...we also identified Chloroquine as a potent antiviral compound against SARS-CoV-2, which has also been shown to effectively inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro [8]." Per webmd.com/lung/coronavirus_...

"What Does the Science Say?

As far back as the late 1960s, scientists have known that chloroquine could kill viruses in a petri dish. Chloroquine is also commonly taken to prevent and treat malaria infection in areas where the disease is widespread.

But what about people who have infections other than malaria? That’s less clear. Human studies in influenza and dengue have shown no effect, either good or bad. And in chikungunya, though chloroquine did well in lab tests, later research showed it might make the illness worse.

Researchers around the world studied hydroxychloroquine’s effects in people with COVID-19. Some found early evidence of an effect against the new coronavirus. But many of those trials were stopped when they failed to show results or found serious side effects."

Neil