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Luteolin Isolated from Juncus acutus L., a Potential Remedy for Human Coronavirus 229E
Asma Hakem1,2, Lowiese Desmarets3, Ramla Sahli1,2
1Joint Research Unit 1158, BioEcoAgro, Univ. Lille, INRAE, Univ. Liège, UPJV, JUNIA, Univ. Artois, Univ. Littoral Côte d'Opale, ICV-Institut Charles Viollette, 59650 Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France.
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, addressed the lack of specific antiviral drugs against coronaviruses. In this study, bioguided fractionation performed on both ethyl acetate and aqueous sub-extracts of Juncus acutus stems led to identifying luteolin as a highly active antiviral molecule against human coronavirus HCoV-229E. The apolar sub-extract (CH2Cl2) containing phenanthrene derivatives did not show antiviral activity against this coronavirus. Infection tests on Huh-7 cells, expressing or not the cellular protease TMPRSS2, using luciferase reporter virus HCoV-229E-Luc showed that luteolin exhibited a dose-dependent inhibition of infection. Respective IC50 values of 1.77 µM and 1.95 µM were determined. Under its glycosylated form (luteolin-7-O-glucoside), luteolin was inactive against HCoV-229E. Time of addition assay showed that utmost anti-HCoV-229E activity of luteolin was achieved when added at the post-inoculation step, indicating that luteolin acts as an inhibitor of the replication step of HCoV-229E. Unfortunately, no obvious antiviral activity for luteolin was found against SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV in this study. In conclusion, luteolin isolated from Juncus acutus is a new inhibitor of alphacoronavirus HCoV-229E.
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