@article{oai:nagasaki-u.repo.nii.ac.jp:00027075,
 author = {Ngwe Tun, Mya Myat and Sakura, Takaya and Sakurai, Yasuteru and Kurosaki, Yohei and Inaoka, Daniel Ken and Shioda, Norifumi and Yasuda, Jiro and Kita, Kiyoshi and Morita, Kouichi},
 journal = {Tropical Medicine and Health},
 month = {Jan},
 note = {Background: Genetic variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) began to emerge in 2020 and have been spreading globally during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Despite the presence of different COVID-19 vaccines, the discovery of effective antiviral therapeutics for the treatment of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 are still urgently needed. A natural amino acid, 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA), has exhibited both antiviral and anti-inflammatory activities. In a previous study, we demonstrated an in vitro antiviral effect of 5-ALA against SARS-CoV-2 infection without significant cytotoxicity. In the present study, we sought to investigate whether 5-ALA with or without sodium ferrous citrate (SFC) can inhibit in vitro both the original SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain and its variants, including the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta strains.
Methods: The antiviral activity of ALA with or without SFC was determined in Vero-E6 cell. The virus inhibition was quantified by real time RT-PCR.
Results: Co-administration of 5-ALA and SFC inhibited the Wuhan, Alpha and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 with IC50 values of 235, 173 and 397 µM, respectively, and the Beta and Gamma variants with IC50 values of 1311 and 1516 µM.
Conclusion: Our study suggests that 5-ALA with SFC warrants accelerated clinical evaluation as an antiviral drug candidate for treating patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 variants., Tropical Medicine and Health, 50, art. no. 6; 2022},
 title = {Antiviral activity of 5-aminolevulinic acid against variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2},
 volume = {50},
 year = {2022}
}