Enhanced Antiviral Function of Magnesium Chloride-Modified Heparin on a Broad Spectrum of Viruses

Mese, Kemal; Bunz, Oskar; Volkwein, Wolfram; Vemulapalli, Sahithya P. B.; Zhang, Wenli; Schellhorn, Sebastian; Heenemann, Kristin; Rueckner, Antje; Sing, Andreas; Vahlenkamp, Thomas W.; Severing, Anna-Lena; Gao, Jian; Aydin, Malik; Jung, Dominik; Bachmann, Hagen S.; Zänker, Kurt S.; Busch, Ulrich; Baiker, Armin; Griesinger, Christian; Ehrhardt, Anja

Previous studies reported on the broad-spectrum antiviral function of heparin. Here we investigated the antiviral function of magnesium-modified heparin and found that modified heparin displayed a significantly enhanced antiviral function against human adenovirus (HAdV) in immortalized and primary cells. Nuclear magnetic resonance analyses revealed a conformational change of heparin when complexed with magnesium. To broadly explore this discovery, we tested the antiviral function of modified heparin against herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and found that the replication of HSV-1 was even further decreased compared to aciclovir. Moreover, we investigated the antiviral effect against the new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and measured a 55-fold decreased viral load in the supernatant of infected cells associated with a 38-fold decrease in virus growth. The advantage of our modified heparin is an increased antiviral effect compared to regular heparin.