A comparison of Remdesivir versus gold cluster in COVID-19 animal model: A better therapeutic outcome of gold cluster

Zhesheng He; Fei Ye; Chunyu Zhang; Jiadong Fan; Zhongying Du; Wencong Zhao; Qing Yuan; Wenchao Niu; Fuping Gao; Bo He; Peng Cao; Lina Zhao; Xuejiao Gao; Xingfa Gao; Bo Sun; Yuhui Dong; Jincun Zhao; Jianxun Qi; Xing-Jie Liang; Huaidong Jiang; Yong Gong; Wenjie Tan; Xueyun Gao

doi:10.1016/j.nantod.2022.101468

A comparison of Remdesivir versus gold cluster in COVID-19 animal model: A better therapeutic outcome of gold cluster

Nano Today. 2022 Jun:44:101468. doi: 10.1016/j.nantod.2022.101468. Epub 2022 Mar 21.

Authors

Zhesheng He¹, Fei Ye², Chunyu Zhang³, Jiadong Fan⁴, Zhongying Du³, Wencong Zhao³, Qing Yuan³, Wenchao Niu³, Fuping Gao¹, Bo He⁴, Peng Cao³, Lina Zhao¹, Xuejiao Gao⁵, Xingfa Gao⁵, Bo Sun⁶, Yuhui Dong¹, Jincun Zhao⁷, Jianxun Qi⁸, Xing-Jie Liang^{9

10}, Huaidong Jiang⁴, Yong Gong¹, Wenjie Tan², Xueyun Gao³

Affiliations

¹ Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
² Key Laboratory of Biosafety, National Health and Family Planning Commission, National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, China CDC, Beijing 102206, PR China.
³ Department of Life Science and Chemistry, Beijing University of Technology, Ping Le Yuan 100, Beijing 100124, PR China.
⁴ Shool of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, PR China.
⁵ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, PR China.
⁶ Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.239 Zhangheng Road, Shanghai 201204, PR China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, PR China.
⁸ CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China.
⁹ CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190, PR China.
¹⁰ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.

Abstract

While gold compound have been approved for Rheumatoid arthritis treatment as it well suppresses inflammatory cytokines of patients, no such treatment is currently available for COVID-19 treatment in vivo . We firstly disclose gold cluster yields better therapeutic outcome than Remdesivir in COVID-19 hamster treatments as it is armed with direct inhibition viral replication and intrinsic suppression inflammatory cytokines expression. Crystal data reveals that Au (I), released from gold cluster (GA), covalently binds thiolate of Cys145 of SARS-CoV-2 M^pro. GA directly decreases SARS-CoV-2 viral replication and intrinsically down-regulates NFκB pathway therefore significantly inhibiting expression of inflammatory cytokines in cells. The inflammatory cytokines in GA-treated COVID-19 transgenic mice are found to be significantly lower than that of control mice. When COVID-19 golden hamsters are treated by GA, the lung inflammatory cytokines levels are significantly lower than that of Remdesivir. The pathological results show that GA treatment significantly reduce lung inflammatory injuries when compared to that of Remdesivir-treated COVID-19 hamsters.

Keywords: COVID-19; Gold cluster; Inflammatory cytokine; SARS-CoV-2; Viral replication.