PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Haripriya Parthasarathy
AU  - Dixit Tandel
AU  - Krishnan H. Harshan
TI  - Metformin Suppresses SARS-CoV-2 in Cell Culture
AID  - 10.1101/2021.11.18.469078
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.11.18.469078
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/11/22/2021.11.18.469078.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/11/22/2021.11.18.469078.full
AB  - People with diabetes are reported to have a higher risk of experiencing severe COVID-19 complications. Metformin, a first-line medication for type 2 diabetes, has antiviral properties. Some studies have indicated its prognostic potential in COVID-19. Here, we report that metformin significantly inhibits SARS-CoV-2 growth in cell culture models. SARS-CoV-2 infection of gut epithelial cell line, Caco2, resulted in higher phosphorylation of AMPK. Metformin reduced viral titers in the infected cells by nearly 99%, and by about 90% when cells were treated prior to infection. Metformin pre-treatment resulted in further phosphorylation of AMPK and caused a ten-fold reduction of viral titers indicating its potential in preventing naïve infections. Confirming the positive impact of AMPK activation, another AMPK activator AICAR substantially inhibited of viral titers and, AMPK inhibitor Compound C, augmented it considerably. Metformin treatment post-SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in nearly hundred-fold reduction of viral titers, indicating that the antiviral potency of the drug is far higher in infected cells, while still being able to reduce fresh infection. Metformin displayed SARS-CoV-2 TCID50 and TCID90 at 3.5 and 8.9 mM, respectively. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that metformin is very effective in limiting the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in cell culture and thus possibly could offer double benefits to diabetic COVID-19 patients by lowering both blood glucose levels and viral load.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.