- New research has revealed the extent of the covid problem by showing some bat coronaviruses can directly infect humans.
- The two coronaviruses used in the research are similar to covid and they directly infected lung cells.
- The infection incited interferon 1 and cytokine inflammation
- However, they also found that treating it with EIDD-2801 drug reduced the infection.
- EIDD-2801 is an oral antiviral drug currently undergoing phase 2-3 trials
Some coronaviruses found in bats could jump directly to people without the need for further evolution in an intermediate animal host, says a new research study published in nature.
How does it happen?
Victor Garcia at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his colleagues implanted mice with human lung tissue and infected the tissue with various coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 and two closely related coronaviruses isolated from bats. All of the viruses could efficiently multiply in the lung tissue (A. Wahl et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03312-w; 2021). The findings suggest that coronaviruses circulating in bats could directly infect people, and have the potential to cause the next pandemic.
All known recently emerged human coronaviruses probably originated in bats1. Here we used a single experimental platform based on human lung-only mice (LoM) to demonstrate efficient in vivo replication of all recently emerged human coronaviruses (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2) and two highly relevant endogenous pre-pandemic SARS-like bat coronaviruses.
- Virus replication in this model occurs in bona fide human lung tissue and does not require any type of adaptation of the virus or the host.
- Our results indicate that bats harbor endogenous coronaviruses capable of direct transmission into humans.
- Further detailed analysis of pandemic SARS-CoV-2 in vivo infection of LoM human lung tissue showed predominant infection of human lung epithelial cells, including type II pneumocytes present in alveoli and ciliated airway cells.
- Acute SARS-CoV-2 infection was highly cytopathic and induced a robust and sustained type I interferon and inflammatory cytokine/chemokine response.
A Drug To Cure It
The researchers also used the animal model to show that an oral antiviral drug known as EIDD-2801 could significantly reduce infectious particles of SARS-CoV-2 in the lung tissue. They say that the drug, currently in late-stage clinical trials, could be used to prevent disease as well as to treat people within a day or two of exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
“Finally, we evaluated a therapeutic and pre-exposure prophylaxis strategy for coronavirus infection”
” Our results show that therapeutic and prophylactic administration of EIDD-2801, an oral broad-spectrum antiviral currently in phase II–III clinical trials, dramatically inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication in vivo and thus has significant potential for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19″, says the researchers.
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Source: Nature
