Functional carbon quantum dots as medical countermeasures to human coronavirus (HCoV)

Aleksandra Loczechin (1) , Karin Séron (2) , Alexandre Barras (1, 3) , Emerson Giovanelli (1, 3) , Sandrine Belouzard (2) , Yen-Ting Chen , Nils Metzler-Nolte , Rabah Boukherroub (1, 3) , Jean Dubuisson (2) , Sabine Szunerits (1, 3)

1 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520
2 CIIL - Centre d’Infection et d’Immunité de Lille - INSERM U 1019 - UMR 9017 - UMR 8204
3 NBI - IEMN - NanoBioInterfaces - IEMN

Therapeutic options for the highly pathogenic human coronavirus (HCoV) infections are urgently needed. Anti-coronavirus therapy is however challenging, as coronaviruses are biologically diverse and rapidly mutating. In this work, the antiviral activity of seven different carbon quantum dots (CQDs) for the treatment of human coronavirus HCoV-229E infections was investigated. The first generation of antiviral CQDs was derived by hydrothermal carbonization from ethylenediamine/citric acid as carbon precursors and post-modified with boronic acid ligands. These nanostructures showed a concentration dependent virus inactivation with an estimated EC50 of 52±8 µg mL-1. CQDs derived from 4-aminophenylboronic acid without any further modification resulted in the second-generation of anti-HCoV nanomaterials with an EC50 lowered to 5.2±0.7 µg mL-1. The underlying mechanism of action of these CQDs revealed to be inhibition of HCoV-229E entry that could * To whom correspondence should be addressed: [e-mail] (Jean Dubuisson) and [e-mail] (Sabine Szunerits)

Mots clés: human coronavirus (HCoV); carbon quantum dots (CQDs); antiviral therapy; boronic acid; multivalent interactions

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Aleksandra Loczechin, Karin Séron, Alexandre Barras, Emerson Giovanelli, Sandrine Belouzard, et al.. Functional carbon quantum dots as medical countermeasures to human coronavirus (HCoV). ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2019, 11 (46), pp.42964-42974. ⟨10.1021/acsami.9b15032⟩. ⟨hal-02328361⟩