{"id":23357,"date":"2020-04-07T15:52:01","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T18:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infobioquimica.com\/new\/?p=23357"},"modified":"2020-04-07T15:52:09","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T18:52:09","slug":"trial-drug-may-block-early-stages-of-covid-19-study-in-human-cells-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/2020\/04\/07\/trial-drug-may-block-early-stages-of-covid-19-study-in-human-cells-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial drug may block early stages of COVID-19, study in human cells shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

A drug already tested against lung disease could potentially inhibit \nCOVID-19 by reducing the coronavirus load that enters the lungs and \nother organs. That is according to a study in human cell cultures and \norganoids by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the \nUniversity of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, published in the journal\n Cell<\/em>.<\/p>

The results could be promising for the treatment of COVID-19 \npatients who are in the early stages of infection, according to the \nresearchers.<\/p>

\u00abOur study provides new insights into how SARS-CoV-2 infects the \ncells of the body, including in blood vessels and kidneys,\u00bb says Ali \nMirazimi, adjunct professor at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at \nKarolinska Institutet and one of the study’s corresponding authors. \u00abWe \nhope that our results can contribute to the development of a novel drug \ntreatment that can help patients with COVID-19.\u00bb<\/p>

The researchers used tissue samples from a patient with COVID-19 to \nisolate and cultivate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease \nCOVID-19. In cell cultures, they were able to show how the spike protein\n in SARS-CoV-2 binds to a cell surface receptor called angiotensin \nconverting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in order to enter our cells. It is the same \nmechanism that the original SARS-virus from 2003 used to bind to our \ncells, and which has been described by several of the researchers in \nprevious studies. <\/p>

By adding a genetically modified variant of this protein, called \nhuman recombinant soluble angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hrsACE2), the\n researchers wanted to test if the virus could be stopped from infecting\n the cells.<\/p>

The result now published shows that hrsACE2 reduced viral growth of \nSARS-CoV-2 by a factor of 1,000 to 5,000 in cell cultures. The result \nwas dose dependent, meaning it varied depending on the total amount of \nvirus in relation to the total amount of hrsACE2. The authors were also \nable to verify these data from regular cell cultures in engineered \nminiature replicas of blood vessels and kidneys, so-called organoids \ngrown from human stem cells.<\/p>

\u00abWe believe adding this enzyme copy, hrsACE2, lures the virus to \nattach itself to the copy instead of the actual cells,\u00bb Mirazimi says. \n\u00abIt distracts the virus from infecting the cells to the same degree and \nshould lead to a reduction in the growth of the virus in the lungs and \nother organs.\u00bb<\/p>

The research has so far been limited to cell cultures and engineered\n miniature organs, but the biotech company Aperion Biologics, which \ndevelops the drug APN01 with the active substance, is planning to \nconduct a clinical pilot study on infected COVID-19 patients in China. \nThe same drug has already been tested against lung disease in a clinical\n phase II study.<\/p>

The researchers note that the current study only examined the drug’s\n effect during the initial stages of infection and that further research\n is needed to determine if it is also effective during later stages of \ndisease development.<\/p>

ACE2 usually helps lungs and other organs to maintain normal \nfunction but when viruses bind to the protein they could damage the \ncells. This could, according to the researchers, explain why some \nCOVID-19 patients suffer severe lung disease and multi-organ failure.<\/p>

With the help of the organoids, the researchers were also able to \nshow that the virus can directly infect and multiply itself in blood \nvessels and kidneys. This provides important information on the \ndevelopment of the disease and the fact that severe cases of COVID-19 \npresent with multi-organ failure and evidence of cardiovascular damage. \nhrsACE2 also reduced the SARS-CoV-2 infection in these engineered human \ntissues. <\/p>

\u00abThe virus causing the COVID-19 is a close sibling to the first SARS virus,\u00bb says Josef Penninger, professor in UBC’s faculty of medicine and co-corresponding author of the study. \u00abOur previous work has helped to rapidly identify ACE2 as the entry gate for SARS-CoV-2, which explains a lot about the disease. Now we know that a soluble form of ACE2 that catches the virus away, could indeed be a very rational therapy that specifically targets the gate the virus must take to infect us.\u00bb<\/p>

Source: eurekalert<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A drug already tested against lung disease could potentially inhibit COVID-19 by reducing the coronavirus load that enters the lungs and other organs. That is according to a study in human cell cultures and organoids by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, published in the journal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2620,"featured_media":23359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[655],"tags":[39485,39503],"class_list":["post-23357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-ingles","tag-covid-19","tag-sars-cov-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2620"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23358,"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23357\/revisions\/23358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infobioquimica.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}