Combinedin silicodocking and in vitro antiviral testing for drug repurposing identified lurasidone and elbasvir as SARS-CoV-2 and HCoV-OC43 inhibitors

Abstract

The current emergency of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 urged the need for broad-spectrum antiviral drugs as the first line of treatment. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that already challenged humanity in at least two other previous outbreaks and are likely to be a constant threat for the future. In this work we developed a pipeline based on in silico docking of known drugs on SARS-CoV RNA-dependent RNA polymerase combined with in vitro antiviral assays on both SARS-CoV-2 and the common cold human coronavirus HCoV-OC43. Results showed that certain drugs displayed activity for both viruses at a similar inhibitory concentration, while others were specific. In particular, the antipsychotic drug lurasidone and the antiviral drug elbasvir showed promising activity in the low micromolar range against both viruses with good selective index.

Inhibitors of Protein Glycosylation Are Active against the Coronavirus Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2

“…Vero E6 cells (ATCC-1586) HEK 293T (ATCC CRL-3216), A549 (ATCC CCL-185), U2OS (ATCC HTB-96), human hepatocarcinoma Huh-7 cells kindly provided by Ralf Bartenschlager (University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany), lung adenocarcinoma Calu-3 (ATCC HTB-55), and Huh-7 cells engineered by lentivirus transduction to overexpress the human ACE2 (Huh7-hACE2) [ 22 ] were cultured in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM, ThermoFisher, Paisley, UK ) supplemented with 10% foetal bovine serum (FBS, ThermoFisher, Paisley, UK) and antibiotics. Cell cultures were maintained at 37 °C under 5% CO2.…”