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SARS-CoV-2 Fears Green: The Chlorophyll Catabolite Pheophorbide A Is a Potent Antiviral
SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is having devastating consequences worldwide. Although vaccination advances at good pace, effectiveness against emerging variants is unpredictable. The virus has displayed a remarkable resistance to treatments and no drugs have been proved fully effective against COVID-19. Thus,...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8538351/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34681272 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ph14101048 |
Sumario: | SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is having devastating consequences worldwide. Although vaccination advances at good pace, effectiveness against emerging variants is unpredictable. The virus has displayed a remarkable resistance to treatments and no drugs have been proved fully effective against COVID-19. Thus, despite the international efforts, there is still an urgent need for new potent and safe antivirals against SARS-CoV-2. Here, we exploited the enormous potential of plant metabolism using the bryophyte Marchantia polymorpha L. and identified a potent SARS-CoV-2 antiviral, following a bioactivity-guided fractionation and mass-spectrometry approach. We found that the chlorophyll derivative Pheophorbide a (PheoA), a porphyrin compound similar to animal Protoporphyrin IX, has an extraordinary antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, preventing infection of cultured monkey and human cells, without noticeable cytotoxicity. We also show that PheoA targets the viral particle, interfering with its infectivity in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Besides SARS-CoV-2, PheoA also displayed a broad-spectrum antiviral activity against enveloped RNA viral pathogens such as HCV, West Nile, and other coronaviruses. Our results indicate that PheoA displays a remarkable potency and a satisfactory therapeutic index, which together with its previous use in photoactivable cancer therapy in humans, suggest that it may be considered as a potential candidate for antiviral therapy against SARS-CoV-2. |
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