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In Vitro Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 Infection by Bovine Lactoferrin
Preprint
in English
| bioRxiv
| ID: ppbiorxiv-093781
ABSTRACT
Since its emergence in late 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been posing a serious threat to public health worldwide as the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Now distributed in a pandemic pattern, this disease still lacks an effective drug treatment with low toxicity, leading pharmaceutical companies and research labs to work against time to find a candidate molecule to efficiently treat the affected patients. Due to the well-known broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity of the lactoferrin protein, we sought to verify whether its bovine form (bLf) would also be effective in vitro against SARS-CoV-2. Using an antiviral assay based on quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), we found that bLf reduced progeny virus yield by up to [~]84,6% in African green monkey kidney epithelial cells (Vero E6) and [~]68,6% in adenocarcinomic human alveolar basal epithelial cells (A549) at 1 mg/mL, a concentration previously shown to have low cytotoxicity. Therefore, our preliminary data suggest that bLf has the potential to constitute a biochemical approach to fight the new coronavirus pandemic.
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Full text:
Available
Collection:
Preprints
Database:
bioRxiv
Language:
English
Year:
2020
Document type:
Preprint
