Researchers in the US have discovered that an experimental cancer drug called AR-12 inhibits the Covid-19 virus from infecting cells and replicating.
AR-12 has been studied extensively as both an anti-cancer and anti-viral drug and showed that it is effective against viruses including Zika, mumps, measles, rubella, chikungunya, drug-resistant HIV and influenza.
“AR-12 works in a unique way. Unlike any other anti-viral drug, it inhibits cellular chaperones, which are proteins that are required to maintain the right 3D shape of viral proteins,” said study author Paul Dent from the Virginia Commonwealth University in the US.
“The shape of the virus is critical to its ability to infect and replicate,” Dent added.
According to the study, published in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology, one of the cellular chaperones inhibited by AR-12 is GRP78, which is essential for…