Ethanol Inhalation as a Method to Denature the Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2

Adv Exp Med Biol. 2024:1457:45-77. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-61939-7_3.

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 virus caused the 2019 COVID pandemic by infecting almost eight hundred million people worldwide. Because it was a new viral infection, there were no vaccines or small molecule medications that could prevent or treat the disease. This chapter provides some details for an obscure treatment for COVID-19, that has decades of anti-viral activity data both in vitro and in vivo in the literature. The medicinal molecules are compared to other small molecules that were identified as possible medications for COVID-19. We developed a computational method that ranks small molecules and their ability to penetrate mucus in the lungs of a COVID-19 patient. Our focus is ethanol as a COVID-19 treatment. The results discussed here are based on Lipinski Rules and QSAR computational methods as well as in vitro and in vivo data. These parameters indicate that ethanol should be a strong candidate for future evaluations.

Keywords: COVID-19; Corona virus; Denature; Ethanol; Inhalation; SARS-CoV-2; Spike protein.

MeSH terms

  • Administration, Inhalation
  • Animals
  • Antiviral Agents / pharmacology
  • Antiviral Agents / therapeutic use
  • COVID-19 / virology
  • COVID-19 Drug Treatment*
  • Ethanol* / pharmacology
  • Humans
  • SARS-CoV-2* / drug effects
  • Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus* / metabolism

Substances

  • Ethanol
  • Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus
  • spike protein, SARS-CoV-2
  • Antiviral Agents