The GMU discussions addressed: The ongoing glob
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The ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic powerfully reinforces the need for therapeutic strategies that can safely and effectively address virus- and host-based events elicited during SARS-CoV-2 infection.
In multiple studies, we have attempted to evaluate the capability of brilacidin to decrease viral load in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Our experiments in the Vero cell line model demonstrate brilacidin decreases viral load in a robust manner when the virus is preincubated with brilacidin, suggesting brilacidin impacts virus integrity.
Brilacidin’s ability to decrease viral load in an ACE2-positive cell line is demonstrable.
All experiments conducted in Vero and Calu-3 cell line models were supportive of an early inhibition exerted by brilacidin on SARS-CoV-2, indicating the drug’s impact on viral integrity.
The idea that brilacidin directly interferes with the integrity of the virion is further supported by the observation that when drug treatment was limited to the virus alone with no treatment of host cells, a robust decrease of viral load was still observed in both the Washington strain and the Italian strain of SARS-CoV-2.
This mechanism of inhibition may be akin to that achieved by neutralizing antibodies that may interact with specific exposed epitopes on the surface of virions