The drug discovery caused nCoV to multiply 1,000 times slower

The hrsACE2 test drug can effectively block the cell gateway used by nCoV to infect hosts.

The findings, published in the journal Cell by a team led by Dr. Josef Penninger at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, promise to become a treatment that can prevent nCoV's early infection. The study provides new insights into the key features of nCoV, the virus that causes Covid-19 and its interactions at the cellular level, as well as how the virus infects blood vessels and kidneys, according to Penninger, professor of medicine. and director of the Life Sciences Institute at UBC.

hrsACE2 inhibits nCoV replication.(Photo: IMBA / Tibor Kulcsar).

ACE2 , a protein on the surface of the cell membrane, is the focus of the research community because this receptor binds to the spike protein of nCoV, enabling the virus to invade the host cell. In previous research, Penninger and colleagues at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Institute of Molecular Biology in Vienne, Austria, first identified ACE2. They found that in the living organization, ACE2 was a key receptor for the SARS virus that caused severe acute respiratory distress syndrome in 2002-2003. His laboratory also found a link between ACE2 and both. Cardiovascular disease and lung failure.

While Covid-19 continues to spread globally, healthcare professionals have difficulty managing severe cases due to the absence of antiretroviral therapy or ACE2 receptor-targeted treatment. molecule is adopted."Our study provides direct evidence that a drug labeled APN01 or hrsACE2 (soluble angiotensin 2 conversion enzyme in humans) is an effective antiviral therapy for Covid-19. hrsACE2 will soon be clinically tested by Austrian biotechnology company Apeiron Biologics , " said Dr. Art Slutsky, a scientist at the Keenan Center for Biomedical Sciences at St. Petersburg Hospital. Michael and a professor at the University of Toronto, who collaborates with the research team, said.

In a cell culture medium, hrsACE2 has an inhibitory effect causing nCoV to multiply by 1,000 to 5,000 times slower than normal. In copies of human blood vessels and kidneys, tiny 3D tissues grown from stem cells called organoid , the team found that nCoV can directly infect and multiply in these tissues. This finding provides important information on the development of the disease, which is consistent with the fact that many severe Covid-19 infections suffer from multiple organ failure and cardiovascular system damage. hrsACE2 also helps reduce the infection of nCoV in organoid.

"Organoid use allows us to quickly examine treatments that are being used with other diseases or about to be approved. Organoid also saves the time needed to test new drugs in humans , " said Núria Montserrat. , a professor at the Institute of Biotechnology in Catalonia, Spain, said.

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