SYNOPSIS
Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
TITLE
The broad spectrum host-directed agent ivermectin as an antiviral for SARS-CoV-2 ?
CITATION
Jans DA, Wagstaff KM. (2021). The broad spectrum host-directed agent ivermectin as an antiviral for SARS-CoV-2? Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 538:163-172. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2020.10.042. Epub 2020 Oct 21. PMID: 33341233; PMCID: PMC7577703.
SUMMARY
FDA approved for parasitic indications, the small molecule ivermectin has been the focus of growing attention in the last 8 years due to its potential as an antiviral. We first identified ivermectin in a high throughput compound library screen as an agent potently able to inhibit recognition of the nuclear localizing Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) integrase protein by the host importin (IMP) α/β1 heterodimer, and recently demonstrated its ability to bind directly to IMPα to cause conformational changes that prevent its function in nuclear import of key viral as well as host proteins. Cell culture experiments have shown robust antiviral action towards a whole range of viruses, including HIV-1, dengue, Zika and West Nile Virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Chikungunya, pseudorabies virus, adenovirus, and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Close to 70 clinical trials are currently in progress worldwide for SARS-CoV-2. Although few of these studies have been completed, the results that are available, as well as those from observational/retrospective studies, indicate clinical benefit. Here we discuss the case for ivermectin as a host-directed broad-spectrum antiviral agent, including for SARS-CoV-2.