Although the sequence of the spike glycoprotein (SGP) of SARS-CoV-2 is significantly different compared to the SGP of SARS-CoV-1, both bind to the same receptor, human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (hACE2). SARS-CoV-2 is a betacoronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV-1. The spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) around the world has created a pandemic situation regarded as a significant public health threat. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. For these products Marinomed Biotech AG declares a financial interest. Several over-the-counter products containing iota-carrageenan are available in 40 countries under different brand names. Andreas Grassauer, Eva Prieschl-Grassauer and Martina Morokutti-Kurz are inventors of a patent submission related to the content of the manuscript the number of this patent application is EP20186334. Andreas Grassauer and Eva Prieschl-Grassauer are co-founders of Marinomed Biotech AG. and M.F.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have read the journal’s policy and declare that the authors Andreas Grassauer, Eva Prieschl-Grassauer, Philipp Graf, and Martina Morokutti-Kurz are are employed by Marinomed Biotech AG. Degree at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg for J.A. This work was supported by graduate program GRK 2504 from the German Research Council to U.S., and it was performed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for obtaining Dr. Marinomed Biotech AG had a role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, preparation of the manuscript and financing the processing charge of the manuscript. Marinomed Biotech AG ( provided support in form of salaries for all authors employed by Marinomed Biotech AG. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.įunding: This work was co-funded by the Austrian Science Promotion Agency (FFG) project number 880687 ( ).

(2021) Iota-carrageenan neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 and inhibits viral replication in vitro. Accordingly, our in vitro data on SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudotyped lentivirus and replication competent SARS-CoV-2 suggest that administration of iota-carrageenan may be an effective and safe prophylaxis or treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infections.Ĭitation: Morokutti-Kurz M, Fröba M, Graf P, Große M, Grassauer A, Auth J, et al. In vitro data on iota-carrageenan against various Rhino- and endemic Coronaviruses showed similar IC 50 values and translated readily into clinical effectiveness when a nasal spray containing iota-carrageenan demonstrated a reduction of severity and duration of symptoms of common cold caused by various respiratory viruses.

Experiments with patient isolated wild type SARS-CoV-2 virus showed an inhibition of replication in a similar range. SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudotyped lentivirus particles were efficiently neutralized with an IC 50 value of 2.6 μg/ml iota-carrageenan. Here, we show that iota-carrageenan can inhibit the cell entry of the SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudotyped lentivirus in a dose dependent manner. Attachment and entry of coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2 is mainly mediated by the spike glycoprotein. In the absence of a vaccine and other effective prophylactic or therapeutic countermeasures the severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) remains a significant public health threat.

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