Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] Domestic researchers have discovered a COVID-19 treatment substance using herbal medicine that is superior to Remdesivir.
The Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine announced on the 27th that Dr. Kwon Seon-oh and the infectious disease research team confirmed that lycorine, a component extracted from the herbal medicine 'Seoksan' (석산), has antiviral effects that inhibit the replication of the COVID-19 virus in the human body.
The research team successfully developed a cell-based coronavirus polymerase inhibitor high-efficiency screening platform and utilized it to discover effective substances derived from natural products that inhibit coronavirus polymerase.
In other words, lycorine derived from the herbal medicine Seoksan (石蒜) was found to act as a non-nucleoside coronavirus polymerase inhibitor. Seoksan (石蒜) is a perennial plant of the Amaryllidaceae family in the monocotyledonous order Liliales. In Korean, it is also known as Kkotmurun or Sangsa-hwa. It is a herbal medicine recorded in Bencao Gangmu (本草綱目), written by Li Shizhen (李時珍) during the Ming Dynasty in China, and is known to have diuretic and detoxifying effects.
The research team confirmed that lycorine has coronavirus polymerase inhibitory effects and demonstrated superior efficacy compared to Remdesivir. Specifically, in experiments targeting the MERS-CoV polymerase, the virus responsible for MERS (IC50=1.387μM, Remdesivir IC50=6.484μM), lycorine showed about 4.5 times greater efficacy, and in experiments targeting the SARS-CoV-2 polymerase (IC50=1.341μM, Remdesivir IC50=2.914μM), it showed approximately 1.8 times better results.
Lycorine also exhibited superior broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus efficacy compared to Remdesivir in cell infection experiments involving new and variant coronaviruses MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2. However, research has only progressed to the level of preclinical efficacy testing, and safety evaluations such as toxicity tests are required for future clinical trial entry.
Dr. Kwon Seon-oh explained, “This research achievement involved independently developing a high-efficiency screening platform for antiviral efficacy substances targeting RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of new and variant coronaviruses as a drug action point. It is significant in that it established a research infrastructure that can be utilized for the development of clinical Korean medicine technologies for the prevention and treatment of new and variant viral infectious diseases, including COVID-19.”
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