Jang Minsu, Park Yea-In, Cha Yeo-Eun, Park Rackhyun, Namkoong Sim, Lee Jin I, Park Junsoo
Division of Biological Science and Technology, Yonsei University, Wonju, Republic of Korea.
Department of Biochemistry, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Republic of Korea.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020 Sep 16;2020:5630838. doi: 10.1155/2020/5630838. eCollection 2020.
COVID-19, a global pandemic, has caused over 750,000 deaths worldwide as of August 2020. A vaccine or remedy for SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, is necessary to slow down the spread and lethality of COVID-19. However, there is currently no effective treatment available against SARS-CoV-2. In this report, we demonstrated that EGCG and theaflavin, the main active ingredients of green tea and black tea, respectively, are potentially effective to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 activity. Coronaviruses require the 3CL-protease for the cleavage of its polyprotein to make individual proteins functional. EGCG and theaflavin showed inhibitory activity against the SARS-CoV-2 3CL-protease in a dose-dependent manner, and the half inhibitory concentration (IC) was 7.58 g/ml for EGCG and 8.44 g/ml for theaflavin. In addition, we did not observe any cytotoxicity for either EGCG or theaflavin at the concentrations tested up to 40 g/ml in HEK293T cells. These results suggest that upon further study, EGCG and theaflavin can be potentially useful to treat COVID-19.
截至2020年8月，新冠疫情这一全球大流行疾病已在全球造成超过75万人死亡。对于引发新冠疫情的病毒——严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2），需要研发出疫苗或治疗方法，以减缓新冠疫情的传播速度并降低其致死率。然而，目前尚无针对SARS-CoV-2的有效治疗方法。在本报告中，我们证明了表没食子儿茶素没食子酸酯（EGCG）和茶黄素，分别是绿茶和红茶的主要活性成分，可能对抑制SARS-CoV-2活性有效。冠状病毒需要3C样蛋白酶（3CL-protease）来切割其多聚蛋白，以使各个蛋白质发挥功能。EGCG和茶黄素对SARS-CoV-2 3CL蛋白酶表现出剂量依赖性抑制活性，EGCG的半数抑制浓度（IC）为7.58微克/毫升，茶黄素为8.44微克/毫升。此外，在HEK293T细胞中，我们在高达40微克/毫升的测试浓度下未观察到EGCG或茶黄素具有任何细胞毒性。这些结果表明，经过进一步研究，EGCG和茶黄素可能对治疗新冠疫情有用。
