During the COVID-19 pandemic, the State Key Laboratory of Virology (WHU) quickly set up a research team to carry out drug research against novel coronavirus. Recently, another two research results were published in well-known SCI journals.

Prof. Xu Ke’s team, in collaboration with Prof. Li Honglin’s team from School of Pharmacy(East China University of Science and Technology), has discovered that human dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) is a drug target with both antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects, verifying that a series of inhibitors and marketed drugs aimed at this target can effectively inhibit the infection of RNA virus such as COVID-19 and influenza. The results of this research were published on the preprint website bioRxiv on March 12 and in Protein & Cell, a domestic well-known SCI academic journal on cell biology on August 4.

Prof. Lan Ke and Prof. Xu Ke from the State Key Laboratory of Virology, cooperated with Professor Hu Ke’s team from the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, have preliminarily demonstrated the efficacy of the marketed drug, leflunomide, in the treatment in small-scale COVID-19 patients. The findings were published on July 23 in Virologica Sinica (the English version of Chinese Virology), a domestic well-known SCI journal in virology. This series of studies provides a brand-new drug choice for the clinical treatment of COVID-19 with a clear target, explicit mechanism and rapid clinical application. It is expected to bring new therapeutic hope to COVID-19 patients.

Schematic diagram of drug action

As is reported, this series of research has received technical support from Zhang Leike and Xiao Gengfu, Researchers of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is funded by the National Key Research and Development Program, National Natural Science Foundation of China, WHU Special Science and Technology Project of anti-COVID-19, and Taikang Insurance Group Co., Ltd.

DOI:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13238-020-00768-w

https://www.virosin.org/article/id/d9eabaac-5c75-45bd-b510-b2fca8d4949a

Rewritten by Zheng Zicheng

Edited by Qin Zehao, Li Yushan, Wu Buer and Hu Sijia

Source: https://news.whu.edu.cn/info/1002/61282.htm