Antiparasitic drug could prevent Covid-19 lung damage

A common antiparasitic drug could block lung damage in people with coronavirus, according to new research part-funded by us and published in Nature.

Using robotic technology to screen over 3,000 approved drugs known to be safe in humans, researchers found Niclosamide – a drug used to treat tapeworm infections – was effective at stopping the viral replication and fusion of lung cells seen in patients with Covid-19.

The researchers say that this drug could be a very promising treatment to ensure people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus do not go on to develop serious long-term lung damage.

Coronavirus drives damaging fusion of cells

The team at the School of Cardiovascular Medicine & Sciences at King’s College London previously studied the lungs of 41 people who died from Covid-19. They found that several lung cells were much larger than usual in 90 per cent of patients. Multiple lung cells had joined together to create large virus-infected lung cells.

Now, Professor Mauro Giacca and his team have discovered that the ‘Spike’ protein - that sits on the outer surface of coronavirus - is responsible for driving a unique series of events that lead to this abnormal and damaging fusion of lung cells.

Coronavirus invades healthy cells when its Spike protein binds to the ACE-2 molecule - the ‘entry point’ for the virus. When healthy cells were infected with SARS-CoV-2 the newly-infected cells then displayed the viral Spike protein on their surface.

Researchers found that this activated a cascade of events and ‘switched on’ a protein called TMEM16, which caused the cells to reach out and fuse with neighbouring cells.

Tapeworm infection drug blocks damage

By adding Niclosamide – which blocks the actions of TMEM16 – to healthy lung cells with the virus, the researchers found that lung cell fusion was abolished and viral replication suppressed. The drug also protected cells against Covid-19-induced cell death. 

The researchers now hope to repurpose Niclosamide and test it in UK human clinical trials as a treatment for Covid-19.

Professor Metin Avkiran, our Associate Medical Director, said:

“People with heart and circulatory diseases are at greater risk of experiencing a more severe Covid-19 illness, and so we’ve been fully committed to supporting our researchers to direct their expertise to help find new treatments.

“This exciting study has not only revealed a process by which the virus damages lung cells but also identified an existing drug which can block that process. More research is needed to determine the benefits of the drug in treating patients with Covid-19 and to explore if it could also put the brake on dangerous processes in other cells leading to blood clots, which often develop with severe Covid-19.”

The research was also supported by Wellcome, BBSRC, European Research Council (ERC) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre.

The research was a collaboration between King’s College London and Imperial College London, UK and the University of Trieste and International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Trieste, Italy. 

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