The Scripps Research team demonstrated that a variant of an existing FDA-approved treatment for neurological disorders may prevent COVID-19 infection in animals. Scientists at Scripps Research Institute have created a new drug that may make the COVID-19 virus into a harbinger of its own doom.
The drug, NMT5, described in a recent paper published inwith chemicals that may temporarily modify the human ACE2 receptor—the molecule the virus normally latches onto to infect cells. That means that while the virus is nearby, its entry into human cells through the ACE2 receptor is inhibited; however, when the virus is not there, ACE2 may operate normally.
Lipton and his colleagues have long been researching variations of the drug memantine, which Lipton created and patented in the 1990s for treating neurological diseases such as. While memantine originated from an anti-influenza drug in the 1960s, clinicians began looking into it for other disorders after seeing a woman with Parkinson’s symptoms improve when she took the drug for the flu.
In the new paper, Lipton’s group characterized and tested NMT5 in isolated cells as well as animals. They showed how NMT5 attaches tightly to SARS-CoV-2 viral particles as the viruses move through the body. Then, they revealed the details of how the drug adds a chemical to certain molecules if it gets close enough. When the virus gets near ACE2 to infect a cell, that translates into NMT5 adding a “nitro group” to the receptor.
Most anti-viral drugs work by directly blocking part of a virus—which can pressure the virus to evolve resistance to the drug. Since NMT5 is only using the virus as a carrier, the researchers think the drug is likely to be effective against many other variants of SARS-CoV-2.
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