Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul 23;5(14):e140971.
doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.140971.

New (re)purpose for an old drug: purinergic modulation may extinguish the COVID-19 thromboinflammatory firestorm

Yogendra Kanthi  1   2 , Jason S Knight  3 , Yu Zuo  3 , David J Pinsky  1   4
Affiliations

New (re)purpose for an old drug: purinergic modulation may extinguish the COVID-19 thromboinflammatory firestorm

Yogendra Kanthi et al. JCI Insight. .

Abstract

Purinergic signaling is discussed as a potential therapeutic target to reduced COVID-19 severity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: YK has served as a consultant to Surface Oncology and Acer Therapeutics. JSK has received research funding from Jazz Pharma for preclinical studies of defibrotide. YK and DJP have a pending patent on the use of biogases in cardiovascular disease (USPTO application US20180369278A1).

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Dipyridamole’s mechanisms of action and potential role in the treatment of COVID-19.
(A) Dipyridamole potentiates homeostatic adenosine receptor signaling by preventing reuptake of ectonucleoside (i) and by stabilizing the intracellular cAMP pools via inhibition of cytoplasmic phosphodiesterase (PDE) activity (ii). (B) Left unchecked, purinergic signaling exacerbates both inflammation and thrombosis; therefore, dipyridamole has the potential to inhibit multiple processes that have been recently linked to COVID-19 severity. Illustrated by Rachel Davidowitz.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Huang C, et al. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet. 2020;395(10223):497–506. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Klok FA, et al. Incidence of thrombotic complications in critically ill ICU patients with COVID-19. Thromb Res. 2020;191:145–147. doi: 10.1016/j.thromres.2020.04.013. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fox SE, Akmatbekov A, Harbert JL, Li G, Quincy Brown J, Vander Heide RS. Pulmonary and cardiac pathology in African American patients with COVID-19: an autopsy series from New Orleans. Lancet Respir Med. 2020;8(7):681–686. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30243-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Varga Z, et al. Endothelial cell infection and endotheliitis in COVID-19. Lancet. 2020;395(10234):1417–1418. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30937-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Merad M, Martin JC. Pathological inflammation in patients with COVID-19: a key role for monocytes and macrophages. Nat Rev Immunol. 2020;20(6):355–362. doi: 10.1038/s41577-020-0331-4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms