Scutellaria baicalensis extract and baicalein inhibit replication of SARS-CoV-2 and its 3C-like protease in vitro
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Abstract
COVID-19 has become a global pandemic that threatens millions of people worldwide. There is an urgent call for developing effective drugs against the virus (SARS-CoV-2) causing this disease. The main protease of SARS-CoV-2, 3C-like protease (3CL pro ), is highly conserved across coronaviruses and is essential for the maturation process of viral polyprotein. Scutellariae radix (Huangqin in Chinese), the root of Scutellaria baicalensis has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat viral infection related symptoms. The extracts of S. baicalensis have exhibited broad spectrum antiviral activities. We studied the anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of S. baicalensis and its ingredient compounds. We found that the ethanol extract of S. baicalensis inhibits SARS-CoV-2 3CL pro activity in vitro and the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in Vero cells with an EC 50 of 0.74 μg/ml. Among the major components of S. baicalensis , baicalein strongly inhibits SARS-CoV-2 3CL pro activity with an IC 50 of 0.39 μM. We further identified four baicalein analogue compounds from other herbs that inhibit SARS-CoV-2 3CL pro activity at microM concentration. Our study demonstrates that the extract of S. baicalensis has effective anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity and baicalein and analogue compounds are strong SARS-CoV-2 3CL pro inhibitors.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.10.035824: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Cell Line Authentication not detected. Table 2: Resources
Experimental Models: Cell Lines Sentences Resources Antiviral activity Assay: The cytotoxicity of S. baicalensis extract and baicalein on Vero cells were determined by CCK8 assays (DOJINDO, Japan). Verosuggested: CLS Cat# 605372/p622_VERO, RRID:CVCL_0059)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 …SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.10.035824: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Cell Line Authentication not detected. Table 2: Resources
Experimental Models: Cell Lines Sentences Resources Antiviral activity Assay: The cytotoxicity of S. baicalensis extract and baicalein on Vero cells were determined by CCK8 assays (DOJINDO, Japan). Verosuggested: CLS Cat# 605372/p622_VERO, RRID:CVCL_0059)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.
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