Engineered proteins: A future treatment option for COVID-19
Healthcare system continues to be challenged by the long-lasting global health impact of COVID-19.The current COVID-19 prevention strategies are plagued with supply chain disruptions.
High vaccine manufacturing costs, and inconvenient vaccine administration methods as the coronaviruses continues to evolve.
There are two small, specific proteins that can be delivered as a nasal spray to protect against and treat COVID-19.
The protein was templated using the DARPin, a synthetic scaffold inspired by a class of binding proteins commonly found in nature.
Compared to conventional antibody-based drugs, darpsins are less prone to "go bad" during prolonged storage at moderate-to-high temperatures and can be made in large quantities at low cost.
These factors make darpsins potentially much more affordable.
DARPins are only 1/8th as large as an antibody, so they have more capacity to get inside of a therapeutically important “hot spot” on a disease-related protein than an antibody.
The researchers created two DARPin molecule that assemble in groups of three and block the interaction between the primary proteins used by the COVID-19 virus to enter cells and its partner on host cells, stopping the virus in its tracks.
When delivered into the nose of animal models with the COVID-causing virus, the DARPins significantly reduced the amount of virus that accumulate in the airways.
The DARPins were effective against the original coronavirus as well as all of the newer coronavirus-causing strains, including the omicron strain.
The researchers attribute the broad effectiveness of the DARPins to their engineering design. It resulted in DARPins being able to mimic being key interface on the cellular receptor needed by the virus to enter cells.
There is a chance of an on-demand nasal spray being able to tackle COVID either before or after a virus exposure.
The team's discovery provides another, potentially lower-cost, therapeutic option for those who cannot receive traditional vaccines or are considered high risk.