TY - JOUR T1 - Alpha-1 antitrypsin inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.07.02.183764 SP - 2020.07.02.183764 AU - Lukas Wettstein AU - Carina Conzelmann AU - Janis A. Müller AU - Tatjana Weil AU - Rüdiger Groß AU - Maximilian Hirschenberger AU - Alina Seidel AU - Susanne Klute AU - Fabian Zech AU - Caterina Prelli Bozzo AU - Nico Preising AU - Giorgio Fois AU - Robin Lochbaum AU - Philip Knaff AU - Volker Mailänder AU - Ludger Ständker AU - Dietmar Rudolf Thal AU - Christian Schumann AU - Steffen Stenger AU - Alexander Kleger AU - Günter Lochnit AU - Konstantin Sparrer AU - Frank Kirchhoff AU - Manfred Frick AU - Jan Münch Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/02/2020.07.02.183764.abstract N2 - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To identify factors of the respiratory tract that suppress SARS-CoV-2, we screened a peptide/protein library derived from bronchoalveolar lavage, and identified α1-antitrypsin (α1-AT) as specific inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2. α1-AT targets the viral spike protein and blocks SARS-CoV-2 infection of human airway epithelium at physiological concentrations. Our findings show that endogenous α1-AT restricts SARS-CoV-2 and repurposes α1-AT-based drugs for COVID-19 therapy.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -