US Scientists have invented a new drug that can turn SARS-CoV-2 against itself & prevent the deadly virus from contaminating human beings. According to the researchers from The Scripps Research Institute, the drug, called NMT5, is likely to be efficacious against the appearing variants of SARS-CoV-2.

The drug, represented in the journal- Nature Chemical Biology, overcoats SARS-CoV-2 with chemicals that can temporarily transform the human ACE2 receptor molecule the virus usually seals onto to infect cells.

The researchers said when the virus is nearest, its passage into human cells through the ACE2 receptor is intercepted. In the absence of the virus, however, ACE2 can perform as usual.

Stuart Lipton, Study senior author and a professor at the Scripps Research Institute, stated what's so neat about this drug is that we're turning the virus against itself.

The team experimented with a library of compounds and pinpointed NMT5 as having two fundamental properties- It can determinate and attach to a pore on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 and chemically change human ACE2 using a component of nitroglycerin as the warhead. The researchers learned this could bend the virus into a delivery vehicle for its end.

The researchers characterised and tested NMT5 in isolated cells and animals. The examination revealed how NMT5 binds tightly to SARS-CoV-2 viral particles as the viruses drive via the body.

The researchers revealed how the drug adds a chemical analogous to nitroglycerin to specific molecules if it gets close enough. When the virus gets close to ACE2 to infect a cell, that decodes into NMT5, adding a nitro group to the receptor.

When ACE2 is changed, its configuration temporarily turns for about 12 hours- so the SARS-CoV-2 virus cannot elongate or bind to it to generate infection.

Lipton stated what's really beautiful is that this exclusively strikes the availability of ACE2 locally when the virus is arriving at it. It doesn't crash all the operations of ACE2 elsewhere in the body, authorizing the normal function of this protein. In cell culture experiments testing how sufficiently the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 can bind to human ACE2 receptors, the drug controlled 95% of viral binding.

The researchers told in hamsters with COVID-19, NMT5 diminished virus levels by 100-fold, destroyed blood vessel impairment in the animals' lungs, and reduced inflammation.

They said the drug also revealed effectiveness against nearly a dozen other virus variants, including Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. Most anti-viral drugs function by instantly blocking part of a virus, which can pressure it to develop antagonism to the drug.

A senior staff scientist and first author of the research, Chang-ki Oh, said that we expect this compound would resume being persuasive even as new variants appear because it doesn't depend on thrashing parts of the virus that generally mutate.

News Source: The Economic Times