COVID-19: Famotidine, Histamine, Mast Cells, and Mechanisms
- PMID: 33833683
- PMCID: PMC8021898
- DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2021.633680
COVID-19: Famotidine, Histamine, Mast Cells, and Mechanisms
Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 infection is required for COVID-19, but many signs and symptoms of COVID-19 differ from common acute viral diseases. SARS-CoV-2 infection is necessary but not sufficient for development of clinical COVID-19 disease. Currently, there are no approved pre- or post-exposure prophylactic COVID-19 medical countermeasures. Clinical data suggest that famotidine may mitigate COVID-19 disease, but both mechanism of action and rationale for dose selection remain obscure. We have investigated several plausible hypotheses for famotidine activity including antiviral and host-mediated mechanisms of action. We propose that the principal mechanism of action of famotidine for relieving COVID-19 symptoms involves on-target histamine receptor H2 activity, and that development of clinical COVID-19 involves dysfunctional mast cell activation and histamine release. Based on these findings and associated hypothesis, new COVID-19 multi-drug treatment strategies based on repurposing well-characterized drugs are being developed and clinically tested, and many of these drugs are available worldwide in inexpensive generic oral forms suitable for both outpatient and inpatient treatment of COVID-19 disease.
Keywords: COVID-19; GPCR (G Protein Coupled Receptors); famotidine (PubChem CID: 3325); histamine (H2) receptor; hyperinflammation state; mast cell activating disorder.
Copyright © 2021 Malone, Tisdall, Fremont-Smith, Liu, Huang, White, Miorin, Moreno, Alon, Delaforge, Hennecker, Wang, Pottel, Blair, Roy, Smith, Hall, Tomera, Shapiro, Mittermaier, Kruse, García-Sastre, Roth, Glasspool-Malone and Ricke.
Conflict of interest statement
RM, PT, and GS were employed by the companies RW Malone MD LLC, Medical School Companion LLC, and Pharmorx LLC, respectively. In all three cases, their contributions to the work described were voluntary and uncompensated. By joint agreement, no patent rights relating to these findings have been asserted by any of the authors. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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COVID-19: Famotidine, Histamine, Mast Cells, and Mechanisms.Res Sq [Preprint]. 2020 Aug 31:rs.3.rs-30934. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-30934/v2. Res Sq. 2020. Update in: Front Pharmacol. 2021 Mar 23;12:633680. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.633680. PMID: 32702719 Free PMC article. Updated. Preprint.
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