HTCC as a Polymeric Inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV
Aleksandra Milewska, Ying Chi, Artur Szczepański, Emilia Barreto-Durán, Agnieszka Dąbrowska, Paweł Botwina, Magdalena Obłoza, Kevin Liu, Dan Liu, Xiling Guo, Yiyue Ge, Jingxin Li, Lunbiao Cui, Marek Ochman, Maciej Urlik, Sylwia Rodziewicz‐Motowidło, Fengcai Zhu, Krzysztof Szczubiałka, Maria Nowakowska, Krzysztof Pyrć
Abstract
The beginning of 2020 brought us information about the novel coronavirus emerging in China. Rapid research resulted in the characterization of the pathogen, which appeared to be a member of the SARS-like cluster, commonly seen in bats. Despite the global and local efforts, the virus escaped the health care measures and rapidly spread in China and later globally, officially causing a pandemic and global crisis in March 2020. At present, different scenarios are being written to contain the virus, but the development of novel anticoronavirals for all highly pathogenic coronaviruses remains the major challenge. Here, we describe the antiviral activity of an HTCC compound, previously developed by us, which may be used as a potential inhibitor of currently circulating highly pathogenic coronaviruses-SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV.