Do known drugs help against SARS-CoV-2?

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Do known drugs help against SARS-CoV-2?

There are no therapeutics available that have been developed for COVID-19 treatment.Repurposing of already available medication for COVID-19 therapy is an attractive option to shorten the road to treatment development. The drug Camostat could be suitable. Camostat exerts antiviral activity by blocking the protease TMPRSS2, which is used by SARS-CoV-2 for entry into cells.However, it was previouslyunknown whether SARS-CoV-2 can use TMPRSS2-relatedproteasesfor cell entry and whether theseproteasescan be blocked by Camostat. Moreover, it was unclear whether metabolization of Camostat interferes with antiviral activity. An international team of researchers around Markus Hoffmann and Stefan Pöhlmann from the German Primate Center (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research has now shown that SARS-CoV-2 can use several TMPRSS2-related proteases for its activation. Theseproteasesare expressed in the upper respiratory tract and are blocked by Camostat. In addition, the researchers found that Camostat and its major metabolite GBPA inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection of primary human lung tissue. These findings support the further development of Camostat and related compounds for COVID-19 therapy (EBioMedicine).

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