In vitro screening of a FDA approved chemical library reveals potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 replication

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Abstract

A novel coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2, emerged in 2019 in China and rapidly spread worldwide. As no approved therapeutics exists to treat COVID-19, the disease associated to SARS-Cov-2, there is an urgent need to propose molecules that could quickly enter into clinics. Repurposing of approved drugs is a strategy that can bypass the time-consuming stages of drug development. In this study, we screened the PRESTWICK CHEMICAL LIBRARY composed of 1,520 approved drugs in an infected cell-based assay. The robustness of the screen was assessed by the identification of drugs that already demonstrated in vitro antiviral effect against SARS-CoV-2. Thereby, 90 compounds were identified as positive hits from the screen and were grouped according to their chemical composition and their known therapeutic effect. Then EC50 and CC50 were determined for a subset of 15 compounds from a panel of 23 selected drugs covering the different groups. Eleven compounds such as macrolides antibiotics, proton pump inhibitors, antiarrhythmic agents or CNS drugs emerged showing antiviral potency with 2 < EC50 ≤ 20 µM. By providing new information on molecules inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro, this study provides information for the selection of drugs to be further validated in vivo. Disclaimer: This study corresponds to the early stages of antiviral development and the results do not support by themselves the use of the selected drugs to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.03.023846: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Antiviral screen: One day prior to infection for the antiviral screening 5×104 VeroE6 cells were seeded in 100µL assay medium (containing 2.5% FCS) in 96 well plates.
    VeroE6
    suggested: JCRB Cat# JCRB1819, RRID:CVCL_YQ49)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.