Quercetin Phytosome ® as a potential drug for Covid-19.

Quercetin Phytosome® as a potential drug for Covid-19. Minerva Gastroenterol Dietol. 2020 Oct 05;: Authors: Di Pierro F, Khan A, Bertuccioli A, Maffioli P, Derosa G, Khan S, Khan BA, Nigar R, Ujjan I, Devraian BR Abstract When looking for new antiviral compounds aimed to counteract the COVID-19, a disease caused by the recently identified novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the knowledge of the main viral proteins is fundamental. The major druggable targets of SARS-CoV-2 include 3-chymotrypsin-like protease (3CLpro), papain-like protease (PLpro), RNA-dependent 26 RNA polymerase, and spike (S) protein. Molecular docking studies have highlighted that quercetin, a natural polyphenol belonging to the flavonol class, inhibits 3CLpro, PLpro and S proteins. Biophysical technics have then very recently confirmed that quercetin is reasonably a potent inhibitor of 3CLpro. The likely antiviral properties of quercetin are anyway challenged by its very poor oral bioavailability profile and any attempt to overcome this limit should be welcome. A phospholipid complex of quercetin (Quercetin Phytosome®) has been recently tested in humans to evaluate a possible improvement in oral bioavailability. After hydrolysis of the conjugated form (mainly glucuronide) of quercetin found in human plasma, the pharmacokinetics results have demonstrated an increased bioavailability rate by about 20-fold for total quercetin. It has been also observed that the presence...
Source: Minerva Gastroenterologica e Dietologica - Category: Gastroenterology Tags: Minerva Gastroenterol Dietol Source Type: research