Q3 · BIOLOGY
Article
Author: Foo, Caroline S ; Chanda, Sushmita ; Stoycheva, Antitsa ; Boland, Sandro ; Misner, Dinah ; Beigelman, Leonid ; Jekle, Andreas ; Abdelnabi, Rana ; Raboisson, Pierre ; Liu, Cheng ; Vandyck, Koen ; Chaltin, Patrick ; Dejonghe, Steven ; Jochmans, Dirk ; Bardiot, Dorothée ; Vangeel, Laura ; Ren, Suping ; Deval, Jerome ; Marchand, Arnaud ; Symons, Julian A ; Blatt, Lawrence M ; Neyts, Johan ; Gupta, Kusum ; Serebryany, Vladimir
There is an urgent need for antivirals targeting the SARS-CoV-2 virus to fight the current COVID-19 pandemic. The SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CLpro) represents a promising target for antiviral therapy. The lack of selectivity for some of the reported 3CLpro inhibitors, specifically versus cathepsin L, raises potential safety and efficacy concerns. ALG-097111 potently inhibited SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro (IC50 = 7 nM) without affecting the activity of human cathepsin L (IC50 > 10 μM). When ALG-097111 was dosed in hamsters challenged with SARS-CoV-2, a robust and significant 3.5 log10 (RNA copies/mg) reduction of the viral RNA copies and 3.7 log10 (TCID50/mg) reduction in the infectious virus titers in the lungs was observed. These results provide the first in vivo validation for the SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro as a promising therapeutic target for selective small molecule inhibitors.