Sunday, April 03, 2022

Promising nose spray could prevent and treat COVID-19 and future variants of concern

What about breathing in the virus through the open mouth? The SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 global pandemic is history and it is well under control!

You can find my summary regarding the global SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 pandemic here.

"A newly discovered small molecule could be sprayed into people’s noses to prevent COVID-19 illness prior to exposure and provide early treatment if administered soon after infection ...
The study, published March 28 in the journal Nature, employed experimental mice engineered with human receptors for the SARS-CoV-2 virus on their cell surfaces and found that a molecule, called N-0385, inhibited entry of the virus into cells in the body. At Cornell, N-0385 was shown to protect mice from infection prior to exposure, while also providing effective treatment when administered up to 12 hours after exposure. ...
“The N-0385 therapy is simpler and less expensive to mass produce than other types of COVID-19 treatments ...
The researchers started by identifying candidate small molecules, including N-0385, which they believed would inhibit TMPRSS2’s ability to facilitate the virus’ entry into a cell by blocking where the protease attaches to the spike protein. ..."

From the abstract:
"... Development of host-directed therapeutics and prophylactics could limit such resistance and offer urgently needed protection against VOCs [variant of concern]. Attractive pharmacological targets to impede viral entry include type-II transmembrane serine proteases (TTSPs), such as TMPRSS2, whose essential role in the virus lifecycle is to cleave the viral spike protein to expose the fusion peptide for cell entry. Here, we identify and characterize a small-molecule compound, N-0385, which exhibits low nanomolar potency and a selectivity index of >106 at inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection in human lung cells and in donor-derived colonoids. In Calu-3 cells it inhibits entry of SARS-CoV-2 VOCs ... Importantly, in the K18-human ACE2 transgenic mouse model of severe SARS-CoV-2 disease, we found that N-0385 affords a high level of prophylactic and therapeutic benefit following either multiple or even a single administration. This demonstrates that TTSP-mediated proteolytic maturation of spike is critical for SARS-CoV-2 infection in vivo and suggests that N-0385 provides a novel effective early treatment option against COVID-19 and emerging SARS-CoV-2 VOCs."

Promising nose spray could prevent and treat COVID-19 | Cornell Chronicle

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