Combination of Recombinant Bacterial ACE2 Receptors -Like Enzyme of B38-CAP and Isotretinoin Could be Promising Treatment for COVID-19 Infection- and Its Inflammatory Complications

Summary

Combination of Recombinant Bacterial ACE2 receptors -like enzyme of B38-CAP and Isotretinoin could be promising treatment for COVID-19 infection- and Its inflammatory complications

Mahmoud ELkazzaz1

1Department of chemistry and biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Damietta University, Egypt.

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B38-CAP is a bacteria-derived ACE2-like enzyme that suppresses hypertension and cardiac dysfunction Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is critically involved in cardiovascular physiology and pathology, and is currently clinically evaluated to treat acute lung failure. Here we show that the B38-CAP, a carboxypeptidase derived from Paenibacillus sp. B38, is an ACE2-like enzyme to decrease angiotensin II levels in mice. In protein 3D structure analysis, B38-CAP homolog shares structural similarity to mammalian ACE2 with low sequence identity. A study demonstrated that the bacterial B38-CAP as an ACE2-like carboxypeptidase, indicating that evolution has shaped a bacterial carboxypeptidase to a human ACE2-like enzyme. Bacterial engineering could be utilized to design improved protein drugs for hypertension and heart failure. pretreatment of B38-CAP markedly down regulated a massive increase of plasma Ang II levels at 5 min after Ang II injection In addition to the currently used drugs to inhibit Ang II generation or signaling, such as ACE inhibitors or Angiotensin receptor blockers, direct down-modulation of Ang II levels by rhACE2 protein is one of the promising candidates for new therapeutic strategy in cardiovascular disease and other Ang II-related diseases, e.g. ARDS. On the other hand, although mass production of rhACE2 as a protein drug costs due to requirement of mammalian cell expression systems, B38-CAP is easily prepared with E. coli expression system and is cost effective. Therapeutic efficacy and less toxicity in mouse heart failure models would warrant further investigation of B38-CAP or other microbial carboxypeptidases in disease models. Finally the principal investigator expects that treatment with ACE2-like enzyme of bacteria B38-CAP expected to work efficiently Like human ACE2 and it will save the lung cells from COVID - 19 inhibitory effect and down regulation of ACE2 because COVID-19 binds to human ACE2 and down regulates it and this receptors is very important for lung cells survival and function So ,the principal investigator also expects that B38-CAP ACE2 like enzyme may be not recognized by COVID -19 spike protein because evolutionary it is too far away from human ace2 and human ACE2 is a real receptor of COVID -19 not ACE2 like enzyme but in the same time it will make the same function of human ACE2 In another study by Sinha et al who analyzed a publicly available Connectivity Map (CMAP) dataset of pre/post transcriptomic profiles for drug treatment in cell lines for over 20,000 small molecules, isotretinoin was the strongest down-regulator of ACE 2 receptors. On the other hand, they found 6 drugs in CMAP that are currently being investigated in clinical trials for treating COVID-19 (chloroquine, thalidomide, methylprednisolone, losartan, lopinavir and ritonavir, from clinicaltrials.gov), none of which was found to significantly alter ACE2 expression (P\>0.1) Moreover, another study demonstrated that isotretinoin is a Potential papain like protease (PLpro) inhibitors which is a protein encoded by SARS-CoV-2 genes and considered one of the proteins that should be targeted in COVID-19 treatment by performing target-based virtual ligand screening . So, the principal investigator expects strong inhibition of COVID - 19 infection And rescuing the lung cells from its serious attack by treating with ACE2 like enzyme and Isotretinoin

Keywords: COVID 2019 , Isotretinoin,B38-CAP , Bacterial ACE2 receptors -like enzyme , rhACE226.

Conditions

• COVID

Interventions

COMBINATION_PRODUCT

Recombinant Bacterial ACE2 receptors -like enzyme of B38-CAP (rbACE2) plus Aerosolized 13 cis retinoic acid

In this study, the experimental group will receive 0.4 mg/kg rbACE2 IV plus Aerosolized 13 cis retinoic acid in gradual in 2 divided doses increases froms 0.2 mg/kg/day to 4 mg/kg/day as inhaled 13 cis retinoic acid therapy for 14 days

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Kafrelsheikh University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• M.Sc. Mahmoud Elkazzaz, M.Sc.Biochemistry · General Organization of Export and Import control system

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-07-31

Primary Completion

2021-08-31

Completion

2021-10-31