Sofosbuvir as a potential option for the treatment of COVID-19

Sofosbuvir as a potential option for the treatment of COVID-19

Authors

  • Anahid Nourian Department of Pharmacotherapy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  • Hossein Khalili Department of Pharmacotherapy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Keywords:

Sofosbuvir, COVID-19

Abstract

Sofosbuvir may be a potential option in the treatment of COVID-19 based on the similarity between the replication mechanisms of the HCV and the coronavirus. According the limited experimental evidences, it is hypothesized that sofosbuvir might be a potential option to improve care of patients with COVID-19 especially at the start of the disease and before invasion of the virus into the lung parenchymal cells. Efficacy and safety of sofosbuvir in treatment of COVID-19 may be considered in future clinical studies.

References

Schinazi, RF, J Shi, and T. Whitaker, Sofosbuvir (Sovaldi): The First-in-Class HCV NS5B Nucleotide Polymerase Inhibitor. Innovative Drug Synthesis 2016: p. 61-79.

Zuccaro V, et al. PK/PD and antiviral activity of anti-HCV therapy: is there still a role in the choice of treatment? Expert Opinion on Drug Metabolism & Toxicology 2020. 16(2): p. 97-101.

Pockros PJ. Nucleoside/nucleotide analogue polymerase inhibitors in development. Clinics in liver disease 2013. 17(1): p. 105-110.

Hilgenfeld R and M Peiris. From SARS to MERS: 10 years of research on highly pathogenic human coronaviruses. Antiviral research 2013. 100(1): p. 286-295.

Elfiky AA, SM Mahdy and WM Elshemey, Quantitative structure‐activity relationship and molecular docking revealed a potency of anti‐hepatitis C virus drugs against human corona viruses. Journal of medical virology, 2017. 89(6): p. 1040-1047.

Elfiky AA. Anti-HCV, nucleotide inhibitors, repurposing against COVID-19. Life sciences 2020: p. 117477.

Chen YW, C.-P.B. Yiu, and K.-Y. Wong. Prediction of the SARS-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV) 3C-like protease (3CL pro) structure: virtual screening reveals velpatasvir, ledipasvir, and other drug repurposing candidates. F1000Research, 2020. 9.

Xu, H.-T., et al., Purification of Zika virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and its use to identify small-molecule Zika inhibitors. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2017. 72(3): p. 727-734.

Lam AM, et al., Genotype and subtype profiling of PSI-7977 as a nucleotide inhibitor of hepatitis C virus. Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy 2012. 56(6): p. 3359-3368.

Fenaux M, et al., Antiviral nucleotide incorporation by recombinant human mitochondrial RNA polymerase is predictive of increased in vivo mitochondrial toxicity risk. Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy 2016. 60(12): p. 7077-7085.

Thi VLD, et al. Sofosbuvir inhibits hepatitis E virus replication in vitro and results in an additive effect when combined with ribavirin. Gastroenterology 2016. 150(1): p. 82-85. e4.

Netzler NE, et al., Antiviral candidates for treating hepatitis E virus infection. Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy 2019. 63(6): p. e00003-19.

Wang W, et al. Distinct antiviral potency of sofosbuvir against hepatitis C and E viruses. Gastroenterology 2016. 151(6): p. 1251-1253.

Jiang W, et al. Sofosbuvir inhibits hepatitis A virus replication in vitro assessed by a cell-based fluorescent reporter system. Antiviral research 2018. 154: p. 51-57.

Dragoni F, et al. Evaluation of sofosbuvir activity and resistance profile against West Nile virus in vitro. Antiviral research 2020: p. 104708.

Bullard-Feibelman KM, et al., The FDA-approved drug sofosbuvir inhibits Zika virus infection. Antiviral research 2017. 137: p. 134-140.

Vicenti, I, et al. Development of a Cell-Based Immunodetection Assay for Simultaneous Screening of Antiviral Compounds Inhibiting Zika and Dengue Virus Replication. SLAS DISCOVERY: Advancing the Science of Drug Discovery 2020: p. 2472555220911456.

Sacramento CQ, et al. The clinically approved antiviral drug sofosbuvir impairs Brazilian zika virus replication. BioRxiv 2016: p. 061671.

Mumtaz N, et al. Cell-line dependent antiviral activity of sofosbuvir against Zika virus. Antiviral research 2017. 146: p. 161-163.

Downloads

Published

11-05-2020

Issue

Section

CORRESPONDENCE - SPECIAL COVID19

How to Cite

1.
Nourian A, Khalili H. Sofosbuvir as a potential option for the treatment of COVID-19. Acta Biomed. 2020;91(2):236-238. doi:10.23750/abm.v91i2.9609