Investigadores del IPNA colaboran en la búsqueda de compuestos antivirales contra el SARS-CoV2
Researchers from the Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology of the CSIC are participating in the search for antiviral compounds against SARS-CoV2, the variant of the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 disease, as well as against the SARS-CoV2 protease. This initiative follows on from the international COST action "Challenging organic syntheses inspired by nature - from natural products chemistry to drug Discovery" and will be carried out in collaboration with the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (Berlin, Germany).
This line of work comes in addition to the participation of the IPNA in the CSIC's Global Health Platform. The Interdisciplinary Thematic Platform was recently launched to facilitate collaboration between more than 200 research groups from different specialities in order to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic from a scientific and technological point of view.
Researchers from IPNA and the National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB), both belonging to the CSIC, are carrying out a massive screening of antiviral compounds to combat SARS-CoV2. This screening platform is based on human coronavirus cell culture infection systems that have been genetically modified so that infected cells manifest fluorescent proteins. This strategy allows the simultaneous measuring of the toxicity and antiviral capacity of different chemical compounds.
Both collaborative research actions aim to identify compounds with the potential to interfere with functions related to S-protein anchorage (surface protein involved in virus recognition) or its ACE2/TMPRSS2 interaction. SARS-CoV-2 uses the SARS-CoV ACE2 receptor for entry and the serine protease TMPRSS2 for "anchoring" the S-protein.
