Abstract
BackgroundGenetic variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) began to emerge in 2020 and have been spreading globally during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Despite the presence of different COVID-19 vaccines, the discovery of effective antiviral therapeutics for the treatment of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 are still urgently needed. A natural amino acid, 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA), has exhibited both antiviral and anti-inflammatory activities. In a previous study, we demonstrated an in vitro antiviral effect of 5-ALA against SARS-CoV-2 infection without significant cytotoxicity. In the present study, we sought to investigate whether 5-ALA with or without sodium ferrous citrate (SFC) can inhibit in vitro both the original SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain and its variants, including the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta strains.MethodsThe antiviral activity of ALA with or without SFC was determined in Vero-E6 cell. The virus inhibition was quantified by real time RT-PCR.ResultsCo-administration of 5-ALA and SFC inhibited the Wuhan, Alpha and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 with IC50 values of 235, 173 and 397 µM, respectively, and the Beta and Gamma variants with IC50 values of 1311 and 1516 µM.ConclusionOur study suggests that 5-ALA with SFC warrants accelerated clinical evaluation as an antiviral drug candidate for treating patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Highlights
The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a serious threat to global public health [1]
The antiviral effect IC50 values associated with 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) and 5-ALA plus sodium ferrous citrate (SFC) treatments were 104 and 173/43 μM against the Alpha variant in a dose-dependent manner (Fig. 2C, D) and 1592, 1311/328 μM against the Beta variant in a dose-dependent manner (Fig. 2E, F), respectively
Co-treatment of 5-ALA and SFC led to viral inhibition IC50 values of 1516/379 and 397/99 μM after infection with the Gamma and Delta variants (Fig. 3B, D)
Summary
The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a serious threat to global public health [1]. Ngwe Tun et al Tropical Medicine and Health (2022) 50:6 neurological symptoms may arise as a result of infection [8,9,10,11] Due to their low fidelity of genome replication, viruses acquire mutations over time, leading to variants of the original isolate. Genetic variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) began to emerge in 2020 and have been spreading globally during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We sought to investigate whether 5-ALA with or without sodium ferrous citrate (SFC) can inhibit in vitro both the original SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain and its variants, including the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta strains
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