Narcissus pseudonarcissus L. and Narcissus poeticus L.: a source of antiviral compounds active against coronavirus

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, for which the first cases were detected in China in 2019, has recently started its ninth pandemic wave. In a recent overview, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that this disease, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2) has infected over 640 million people and killed more than 6 million people over the world. Plants are considered as inexhaustible sources of novel bioactive compounds and recent reviews demonstrated that plants are rich in antiviral active compounds and particularly active against coronavirus. In this context we investigated the antiviral activity of plants growing in Auvergne, a region of France possessing a diversified flora, and we evaluated the chemical profile and the antiviral potency of two plants. Our study described the isolation and characterisation of specific alkaloid derivatives from two plants of the amaryllidaceae familly: Narcissus pseudonarcissus L. and Narcissus poeticus L. We isolated two major alkaloids from N. pseudonarcissus and four major compounds from N. poeticus. Among these six alkaloids, one was a new compound that has never been described and another one showed a similar antiviral activity on SARS-CoV-2 as Remdesivir, used as a control, with an IC₅₀ of around 1 μM. We also determined the selectivity index between cytotoxicity and antiviral activity which was around 4.7.

 

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Artikel online veröffentlicht:
16. November 2023