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
. 2022 Dec;6(12):e2200148.
doi: 10.1002/adbi.202200148. Epub 2022 Jul 1.

Cepharanthine: A Promising Old Drug against SARS-CoV-2

Huahao Fan  1 , Shi-Ting He  1 , Pengjun Han  1 , Bixia Hong  1 , Ke Liu  1 , Maochen Li  1 , Shuqi Wang  1 , Yigang Tong  1   2
Affiliations

Cepharanthine: A Promising Old Drug against SARS-CoV-2

Huahao Fan et al. Adv Biol (Weinh). 2022 Dec.

Abstract

Recently, the inhibiting effects of a clinically approved drug Cepharanthine on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have attracted widespread attention and discussion. However, the public does not understand the relevant research progress very well. This paper aims to introduce a brief history of studies on the effects of cepharanthine against SARS-CoV-2, including "discovery of anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of cepharanthine in vitro", "potential mechanisms of cepharanthine against SARS-CoV-2", "confirmation of cepharanthine's anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity in vivo", "potential approaches for improving the druggability of cepharanthine" and "clinical trials of cepharanthine treating SARS-CoV-2 infection". Taken together, cepharanthine is believed to be a promising old drug for coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) therapy.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; cepharanthine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A timeline of critical events in research progress on inhibition of SARS‐CoV‐2 by cepharanthine. Since March 2020, when cepharanthine was first discovered as a potential anti‐SARS‐CoV‐2 drug, a large number of studies on the inhibition of cepharanthine against SARS‐CoV‐2 infection and its mechanism of action are underway. These events were summarized and displayed in the form of a timeline.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Fan H., Lou F., Fan J., Li M., Tong Y., Lancet Microbe 2022, 3, e91. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lam T. T.‐Y., Jia N.a, Zhang Y.‐W., Shum M. H.‐H., Jiang J.‐F., Zhu H.‐C., Tong Y.‐G., Shi Y.‐X., Ni X.‐B., Liao Y.‐S., Li W.‐J., Jiang B.‐G., Wei W., Yuan T.‐T., Zheng K., Cui X.‐M., Li J., Pei G.‐Q., Qiang X., Cheung W. Y.‐M., Li L.‐F., Sun F.‐F., Qin S., Huang J.‐C., Leung G. M., Holmes E. C., Hu Y.‐L., Guan Y., Cao W.‐C., Nature 2020, 583, 282. - PubMed
    1. Fan H.‐H., Wang L.‐Q., Liu W.‐L., An X.‐P., Liu Z.‐D., He X.‐Q., Song L.‐H., Tong Y.‐G., Chin. Med. J. 2020, 133, 1051. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lu C., Zheng J., Ding Y., Meng Y., Tan F., Gong W., Chu X., Kong X., Gao C., Drug Delivery 2021, 28, 2582. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ohashi H., Watashi K., Saso W., Shionoya K., Iwanami S., Hirokawa T., Shirai T., Kanaya S., Ito Y., Kim K. S., Nomura T., Suzuki T., Nishioka K., Ando S., Ejima K., Koizumi Y., Tanaka T., Aoki S., Kuramochi K., Suzuki T., Hashiguchi T., Maenaka K., Matano T., Muramatsu M., Saijo M., Aihara K., Iwami S., Takeda M., Mckeating J. A., Wakita T., iScience 2021, 24, 102367. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types