A comparison of Remdesivir versus Au22Glutathione18 in COVID-19 golden hamsters: a better therapeutic outcome of gold compound

We firstly disclose single compound yields better therapeutic outcome than Remdesivir in COVID-19 hamster treatments as it is armed with direct inhibition viral replication and intrinsic suppression inflammatory cytokines expression. Crystal data reveals that Au (I), released from Au22Glutathione18 (GA), covalently binds thiolate of Cys145 of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro. GA directly decreases SARS-CoV-2 viral replication (EC50: ~240nM) and intrinsically down-regulates NFκB pathway therefore significantly inhibiting expression of inflammatory cytokines in cells. The lung viral load and inflammatory cytokines in GA-treated COVID-19 transgenic mice are found to be significantly lower than that of control mice. When COVID-19 golden hamsters are treated by GA, the lung inflammatory cytokines levels are significantly lower than that of Remdesivir while their lung viral load are decreased to same level. The pathological results show that GA treatment significantly reduce lung inflammatory injuries when compared to that of Remdesivir-treated COVID-19 golden hamsters.