A Highly Potent SARS-CoV-2 Blocking Lectin Protein
ACS INFECTIOUS DISEASES, cilt.8, sa.7, ss.1253-1264, 2022 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 8 Sayı: 7
- Basım Tarihi: 2022
- Doi Numarası: 10.1021/acsinfecdis.2c00006
- Dergi Adı: ACS INFECTIOUS DISEASES
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, BIOSIS, Chemical Abstracts Core, EMBASE, MEDLINE
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1253-1264
- Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease-19) pandemic affected more than 180 million people around the globe, causing more than five million deaths as of January 2022. SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), the new coronavirus, has been identified as the primary cause of the infection. The number of vaccinated people is increasing; however, prophylactic drugs are highly demanded to ensure secure social contact. A number of drug molecules have been repurposed to fight against SARS-CoV-2, and some of them have been proven to be effective in preventing hospitalization or ICU admissions. Here, we demonstrated griffithsin (GRFT), a lectin protein, to block the entry of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, Delta and Omicron, into the Vero E6 cell lines and IFNAR(-/-) mouse models by attaching to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. Given the current mutation frequency of SARS-CoV-2, we believe that GRFT protein-based drugs will have a high impact in preventing the transmission of both the Wuhan strain as well as any other emerging variants, including Delta and Omicron variants, causing the high-speed spread of COVID-19.