Analysis of Infected Host Gene Expression Reveals Repurposed Drug Candidates and Time-Dependent Host Response Dynamics for COVID-19

The repurposing of existing drugs offers the potential to expedite therapeutic discovery against the current COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We have developed an integrative approach to predict repurposed drug candidates that can reverse SARS-CoV-2-induced gene expression in host cells, and evaluate their efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. We found that 13 virus-induced gene expression signatures computed from various viral preclinical models could be reversed by compounds previously identified to be effective against SARS- or MERS-CoV, as well as drug candidates recently reported to be efficacious against SARS-CoV-2. Based on the ability of candidate drugs to reverse these 13 infection signatures, as well as other clinical criteria, we identified 10 novel candidates. The four drugs bortezomib, dactolisib, alvocidib, and methotrexate inhibited SARS-CoV-2 infection-induced cytopathic effect in Vero E6 cells at < 1 µM, but only methotrexate did not exhibit unfavorable cytotoxicity. Although further improvement of cytotoxicity prediction and bench testing is required, our computational approach has the potential to rapidly and rationally identify repurposed drug candidates against SARS-CoV-2. The analysis of signature genes induced by SARS-CoV-2 also revealed interesting time-dependent host response dynamics and critical pathways for therapeutic interventions (e.g. Rho GTPase activation and cytokine signaling suppression).

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - year:2020

Enthalten in:

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology - (2020) vom: 13. Juni

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Xing, Jing [VerfasserIn]
Shankar, Rama [VerfasserIn]
Drelich, Aleksandra [VerfasserIn]
Paithankar, Shreya [VerfasserIn]
Chekalin, Evgenii [VerfasserIn]
Dexheimer, Thomas [VerfasserIn]
Chua, Mei-Sze [VerfasserIn]
Rajasekaran, Surender [VerfasserIn]
Tseng, Chien-Te Kent [VerfasserIn]
Chen, Bin [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

COVID-19
Coronavirus
Drug repurposing
Gene expression reversal
Preprint

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 03.04.2024

published: Electronic

Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE

doi:

10.1101/2020.04.07.030734

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM310907756