THE ANTIVIRAL PROPERTIES OF THE SEA URCHINS

RUBILAR, TAMARA; BARBIERI, E.S.; GAZQUEZ, AYELÉN; AVARO, MARISA; CARDOSO, DANA; FERNANDEZ, JIMENA PIA; SEPULVEDA, LUCAS

Cambridge

Exposición; Harvard University - Virtual Radcliffe Seminar: South-to-South Collaboration on Vaccines and Therapeutics innovation; 2020

Harvard University

TheSARS-CoV-2 outbreak has spread rapidly and globally generating a newcoronavirusdisease (COVID-19) since December 2019 that turned into a pandemic.Effective drugs areurgently needed and drug repurposing strategies offer apromising alternative to dramaticallyshorten the process of traditional de novodevelopment. Methods: Based on their antiviral uses,the potential affinity ofsea urchin pigments to bind the main protease (Mpro) and the Spikeglycoprotein ofSARS-COV-2 was evaluated in silico. Docking analyses were used to testthepotential of these sea urchin pigments as therapeutic and antiviral agentsand compared withknown drugs. In addition, a comprehensive literature andpatent search review was undertakenusing PubMed, as well as Google Scholar andEspacenet engines to review on these areas.Conclusions: All pigment compoundspresented high molecular affinity to these proteins.However, thepolihydroxilated 1,4-naphtoquinones, Spinochrome A and Echinochrome A,showedhigh affinity for these proteins and were predicted to performed better thanthe rest ofthe pigments in terms of pharmacokinetics and complexity ofsynthesis. All these resultsprovide novel information regarding the uses of seaurchin pigments as antiviral drugs andsuggest the need for further in vitro andin vivo analysis to expand all therapeutic uses againstSARS-CoV-2.Polihydroxilated 1,4-naphtoquinones are candidate drug to treat CytokineStormSyndrome (CSS) produce by SARS-CoV-2.