A Small Molecule That In Vitro Neutralizes Infection of SARS-CoV-2 and Its Most Infectious Variants, Delta, and Omicron

Arfaxad Reyes-Alcaraz; Hanan Qasim; Elizabeth Merlinsky; Glenn Fox; Tasneem Islam; Bryan Medina; Robert J Schwartz; John W Craft Jr; Bradley K McConnell

doi:10.3390/biomedicines11030916

A Small Molecule That In Vitro Neutralizes Infection of SARS-CoV-2 and Its Most Infectious Variants, Delta, and Omicron

Biomedicines. 2023 Mar 15;11(3):916. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines11030916.

Authors

Arfaxad Reyes-Alcaraz¹, Hanan Qasim¹, Elizabeth Merlinsky¹, Glenn Fox², Tasneem Islam¹, Bryan Medina¹, Robert J Schwartz³, John W Craft Jr³, Bradley K McConnell¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.
² Rogers State University, 1701 W. Will Rogers Blvd., Claremore, OK 74017, USA.
³ Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the urgent need to develop highly potent and safe medications that are complementary to the role of vaccines. Specifically, it has exhibited the need for orally bioavailable broad-spectrum antivirals that are able to be quickly deployed against newly emerging viral pathogens. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and its variants Delta and Omicron are still a major threat to patients of all ages. In this brief report, we describe that the small molecule CD04872SC was able to neutralize SARS-CoV2 infection with a half-maximal effective concentration (EC50) = 248 μM. Serendipitously, we also were able to observe that CD04872SC inhibited the infection of the SARS-CoV-2 variants; Delta (EC50 = 152 μM) and Omicron (EC50 = 308 μM). These properties may define CD04872SC as a potential broad-spectrum candidate lead for the development of treatments for COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Delta; Omicron; SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

Abstract

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