NAC Offers the Following Key Features to Combat COVID-19
Anti-Virus Functions of NAC
RNA viruses need active NF-κB pathway support within host cells in order to replicate. For human coronaviruses (HCoV-229E), suppression of NF-κB significantly reduced the replication rate.
22 Therefore, drugs that inhibit NF-κB activation could potentially reduce viral replication.
NAC has been demonstrated to inhibit NF-κB, as well as the replication of human influenza viruses (H5N1, Vietnam/VN1203 strain) in human lung epithelial cells in a dose dependent manner (5 to 15 mM) (
Figure 2). NAC also reduced the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-8, CXCL10, CCL5 and IL-6), thus reducing chemotactic migration of monocytes.
23 In addition, NAC has also been showed to inhibit replication of other viruses, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
24 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
25 This means that, theoretically, NAC has the potential to inhibit SARS-Cov-2 as well because of its ability to negatively regulate NF-κB.