New Therapy for Parasitic Disease may Help Fight Coronavirus by Angela Mohan on April 5, 2021 at 8:26 PM
SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, can t dock on and infect human cells unless a human enzyme called cathepsin L cleaves the virus spike protein.
Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that produce an enzyme called cruzain, helps them to replicate in humans. McKerrow s research team started looking for inhibitors of cruzain. One particularly effective cruzain inhibitor is called K777.
They later found that cathepsin L looks and acts like cruzain.
In a study published by
ACS Chemical Biology, McKerrow and the team show that low concentrations of K777 inhibit cathepsin L can reduce SARS-CoV-2 s ability to infect four host cell lines, without harming the cells.