Health Care : Current Reviews

Metabolic regulation of SARS-CoV-2 infection

7^th World Summit on Neonatal Nursing and Health Care & 5^th World Congress on Infection Prevention and Control

October 18, 2022 | Webinar

Avner Ehrlich

Grass Center for Bioengineering, Israel

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Health Care Curr Rev

Abstract:

Viruses are efficient metabolic engineers that actively rewire host metabolic pathways to support their lifecycle, presenting attractive metabolic targets for intervention. Here we chart the metabolic response of lung epithelial cells to SARS-CoV-2 infection in primary cultures and Covid-19 patient samples. Virus infection produced transcriptional changes associated with increased glycolysis and lipid accumulation. Metabolism-focused drug screen showed that fenofibrate reversed lipid accumulation and blocked SARS-CoV-2 replication through a PPAR -dependent mechanism in both alpha and delta variants. Analysis of 3,233 Israeli patients hospitalized due to Covid-19 supported in vitro findings. Patients taking fibrates showed significantly lower markers of immune inflammation and faster recovery. Additional corroboration was received by comparative epidemiological analysis from cohorts in Europe and the United States. A subsequent prospective non-randomized interventional open-label study was carried out in 15 patients hospitalized with severe Covid-19. The patients were treated with 145 mg/ day of nanocrystallized fenofibrate in addition to standardof- care. Patients receiving fenofibrate demonstrated a rapid reduction in inflammation and a significantly faster recovery compared to patients admitted during the same period. Taken together, our data suggests that pharmacological modulation of PPARα should be strongly considered as a potential therapeutic approach for SARS-CoV-2 infection and emphasizes the need to complete the study of fenofibrate in large randomized controlled clinical trials.

Biography :

Avner Ehrlich is a PhD candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a former junior faculty. He is the co-founder of iCough and the EVP Research and Development of Tissue Dynamics.