Significant Broad Spectrum Antiviral activity of Bi121 Against Different Variants of SARS-CoV-2

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Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic infected 343 million people with over 5.59 million deaths. New mutated lineages of SARS-CoV-2 such as Omicron are evolving faster. Broad-spectrum viral inhibitors that block the initial stage of infection by reducing virus proliferation and disease severity is an unmet global medical need. We studied Bi121, a standardized polyphenolic-rich compound isolated from Pelargonium sidoides , against recombinant Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (rVSV)-pseudotyped SARS-CoV-2S (spike) that represent mutations in the spike protein of six different variants of SARS-CoV-2. Bi121 was effective in neutralizing all six rVSV-ΔG-SARS-CoV-2S variants expressing different mutations. The antiviral activity of Bi121 was then assessed against three variants of SARS-CoV-2 (USA WA1/2020, Hongkong/VM20001061/2020, B.1.167.2 (Delta)) using RT-qPCR and plaque assays in two different cell lines (Vero cells and HEK-ACE2). Bi121 showed significant activity toward all the three variants tested, suggesting a broad-spectrum activity.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.29.477140: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    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.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.


    About SciScore

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