Reis Erik Vinicius de Sousa, Ferreira Linziane Lopes, Clarindo Felipe Alves, Marques-Ferreira Geovane, de Oliveira Leonardo Camilo, Moraes Thaís de Fátima Silva, de Carvalho Luciana Debortoli, da Fonseca Flávio Guimarães, Sabino Adriano de Paula, Eapen Mathew Suji, Teixeira Mauro Martins, Valle Sarah J, Morris David L, Coelho-Dos-Reis Jordana Grazziela Alves
Laboratório de Virologia Básica e Aplicada (LVBA), Departamento de Microbiologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
CT Terapias Avançadas e Inovadoras, (CT-Terapias), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 7;15(1):11882. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-92242-y.
The recent pandemic represented one of the biggest challenges of modern civilization. SARS-CoV-2 remains an imminent public health threat and currently, there is no effective and greatly affordable treatment for severe COVID-19. Although standard management with dexamethasone, and physical management including physiotherapy, prone positioning and mechanical ventilation are used, severe disease patients may still succumb to infection. In this regard, BromAc is a combination therapy of a refined protein derived from Bromelain and acetylcysteine, that shows significant mucolytic and anti-inflammatory properties. In the present study, we performed in vitro, and ex vivo analyses to assess the effect of BromAc in inhibiting Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 at different levels. Here, we provide evidence of the in vitro virucidal activity of BromAc in Vero-ACE2/TMPRSS2 cell line infected with the Omicron variant. BromAc can also abrogate SARS-CoV-2 RNA genomic copies in tracheal aspirate (TA) samples from critically ill COVID-19 patients after long term exposure. These results were confirmed by lower spike expression observed in EpCAMPanCK epithelial cells from tracheal aspirate samples after BromAc treatment. Furthermore, atomized BromAc promoted cleavage of the S1 Spike subunit in TA samples, demonstrating the mechanism of the antiviral activity displayed by BromAc in human samples. These results bring novel evidence of antiviral activity in cell lines in vitro as well as in tracheal aspirate samples from critically ill COVID-19 patients, which support its potential use as an adjunct to COVID-19 management in future waves of Omicron subvariants.
最近的这场大流行是现代文明面临的最大挑战之一。严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）仍然是迫在眉睫的公共卫生威胁，目前，对于重症新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）尚无有效且价格亲民的治疗方法。尽管使用了地塞米松的标准治疗以及包括物理治疗、俯卧位通气和机械通气在内的物理管理方法，但重症患者仍可能死于感染。在这方面，溴化乙酰半胱氨酸（BromAc）是一种由菠萝蛋白酶衍生的精制蛋白质与乙酰半胱氨酸的联合疗法，具有显著的黏液溶解和抗炎特性。在本研究中，我们进行了体外和离体分析，以评估BromAc在不同水平抑制SARS-CoV-2奥密克戎变种的效果。在此，我们提供了BromAc在感染奥密克戎变种的Vero-ACE2/TMPRSS2细胞系中的体外杀病毒活性的证据。长期暴露后，BromAc还可以消除重症COVID-19患者气管吸出物（TA）样本中的SARS-CoV-2 RNA基因组拷贝。这些结果通过BromAc处理后气管吸出物样本中上皮细胞黏蛋白1（EpCAMPanCK）上皮细胞中刺突蛋白表达降低得到证实。此外，雾化的BromAc促进了TA样本中S1刺突亚基的裂解，证明了BromAc在人体样本中显示的抗病毒活性机制。这些结果为体外细胞系以及重症COVID-19患者气管吸出物样本中的抗病毒活性带来了新的证据，支持其在未来奥密克戎亚变种浪潮中作为COVID-19治疗辅助药物的潜在用途。
