tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Virus Res
. 2025 Mar 18:199560.
doi: 10.1016/j.virusres.2025.199560. Online ahead of print. Combination Therapy Enhances the Antiviral Activity of IFN-λ Against SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV
Vahid Rajabali Zadeh[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Jocelyne M Lew[SUP] 1 [/SUP], M Atif Zahoor[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Deanna Santer[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Jordan J Feld[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Darryl Falzarano[SUP] 5 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Therapeutic options against pathogenic human coronaviruses remain limited. In a recent clinical trial, we demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of pegylated-IFN-λ in COVID-19 outpatients. However, the emergence of variants that have the potential to evade IFN-mediated antiviral responses raises concerns regarding the continued efficacy of this approach. In this work, we compared the sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 variants and MERS-CoV to IFN-λ treatment in vitro and explored the potential of combination therapy with other FDA-authorized or approved antiviral agents. We observed that in contrast to the ancestral strain, all other SARS-CoV-2 lineages showed varying, but increased resistance to IFN-λ treatment, from a 5.7-fold increase in EC[SUB]50[/SUB] value for the P.1 strain to a 32.7-fold increase for the B.1.1.7 variant. We further show that combination treatment with remdesivir or nirmatrelvir enhanced the antiviral effect of IFN-λ against both SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV. These findings justify the initiation of further in vivo testing that ultimately can help inform the development of more effective therapeutic guidelines against pathogenic coronaviruses.
Keywords: Interferon lambda; MERS-CoV; SARS-CoV-2; Therapeutics; Variants of concern.
. 2025 Mar 18:199560.
doi: 10.1016/j.virusres.2025.199560. Online ahead of print. Combination Therapy Enhances the Antiviral Activity of IFN-λ Against SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV
Vahid Rajabali Zadeh[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Jocelyne M Lew[SUP] 1 [/SUP], M Atif Zahoor[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Deanna Santer[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Jordan J Feld[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Darryl Falzarano[SUP] 5 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 40113092
- DOI: 10.1016/j.virusres.2025.199560
Therapeutic options against pathogenic human coronaviruses remain limited. In a recent clinical trial, we demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of pegylated-IFN-λ in COVID-19 outpatients. However, the emergence of variants that have the potential to evade IFN-mediated antiviral responses raises concerns regarding the continued efficacy of this approach. In this work, we compared the sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 variants and MERS-CoV to IFN-λ treatment in vitro and explored the potential of combination therapy with other FDA-authorized or approved antiviral agents. We observed that in contrast to the ancestral strain, all other SARS-CoV-2 lineages showed varying, but increased resistance to IFN-λ treatment, from a 5.7-fold increase in EC[SUB]50[/SUB] value for the P.1 strain to a 32.7-fold increase for the B.1.1.7 variant. We further show that combination treatment with remdesivir or nirmatrelvir enhanced the antiviral effect of IFN-λ against both SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV. These findings justify the initiation of further in vivo testing that ultimately can help inform the development of more effective therapeutic guidelines against pathogenic coronaviruses.
Keywords: Interferon lambda; MERS-CoV; SARS-CoV-2; Therapeutics; Variants of concern.