Angiotensin receptor blockers as tentative SARS‐CoV‐2 therapeutics

By David Gurwitz. Drug development research (Print), 2020

717 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract At the time of writing this commentary (February 2020), the coronavirus COVID‐19 epidemic has already resulted in more fatalities compared with the SARS and MERS coronavirus epidemics combined. Therapeutics that may assist to contain its rapid spread and reduce its high mortality rates are urgently needed. Developing vaccines against the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus may take many months. Moreover, vaccines based on viral‐encoded peptides may not be effective against future coronavirus epidemics, as virus mutations could make them futile. Indeed, new Influenza virus strains emerge every year, requiring new immunizations. A tentative suggestion based on existing therapeutics, which would likely be resistant to new coronavirus mutations, is to use available angiotensin receptor 1 (AT1R) blockers, such as losartan, as therapeutics for reducing the aggressiveness and mortality from SARS‐CoV‐2 virus infections. This idea is based on observations that the angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) very likely serves as the binding site for SARS‐CoV‐2, the strain implicated in the current COVID‐19 epidemic, similarly to strain SARS‐CoV implicated in the 2002–2003 SARS epidemic. This commentary elaborates on the idea of considering AT1R blockers as tentative treatment for SARS‐CoV‐2 infections, and proposes a research direction based on datamining of clinical patient records for assessing its feasibility.

Subfields: Epidemiology, Infectious Diseases

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b3a69848459a7005eec4421d153dac537c340e4e

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In Epidemiology

1. S. Ghasemi
2. Leila Mousavizadeh

In Infectious Diseases

1. S. Ghasemi
2. Leila Mousavizadeh

Citations in the corpus

• Insights into SARS-CoV-2 genome, structure, evolution, pathogenesis and therapies: Structural genomics approach (2020, neutral): “[138], and (viii) Intravenous immunoglobulin collected from recovered coronavirus patients: SARS-CoV-2 contamination [139], (ix) blood Fig.”
• COVID-19 and diabetes: Knowledge in progress (2020, neutral): “On the contrary, some have advocated that ACEIs and ARBs might rather be beneficial [58].”
• SARS-CoV-2: Structure, Biology, and Structure-Based Therapeutics Development (2020, background): “As an adenosine analogue, remdesivir functions after virus entry, via incorporating into nascent viral RNA to terminate the replication before the RNA become mature (Gurwitz, 2020).”
• The pivotal link between ACE2 deficiency and SARS-CoV-2 infection (2020, neutral): “[80,83] It is hoped that the results of the above mentioned NCT04312009 and NCT04311177 trials will answer this question.”
• Role of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in COVID-19 (2020, background): “Thus, the use of ACEIs/ARBs, renin inhibitors, and angiotensin-(1–7) analogs may attenuate organ injuries by blocking the renin-angiotensin pathway and/or increasing angiotensin-(1–7) levels [103].”
• Genotype and phenotype of COVID-19: Their roles in pathogenesis (2020, methodology): “Based on t his information, Gurwitz suggested using available angiotensin receptor 1(AT1R) blockers, su ch as losartan, as therapeutics for reducing the severity of COVID-19 infections(20).”