A group of scientists in Germany have identified a drug which may work to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus sweeping the globe.
Share to linkedin... [+]A group of scientists in Germany have identified a drug called camostat mesylate, that they believe may work to combatshows that SARS-CoV-2 binds to human cells in a similar way to the original SARS coronavirus that caused a worldwide outbreak in 2003, with this binding depending on viral proteins called ‘spike’ proteins.
As well as this initial process, the spike protein has to be primed by an enzyme called a protease in order for the virus to complete entry into the cell. The study showed that similar to SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 uses a protease called TMPRSS2 to complete this process. “We found that SARS-CoV-2, like SARS-CoV, uses the host proteins ACE2 and TMPRSS2 to enter cells. Both viruses should therefore infect similar cells in patients and may cause disease via similar mechanisms,” said Markus Hoffmann, PhD, researcher in the Infection Biology Unit of the German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany and first author of the paper.
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