Figure 1

Imatinib diminished SARS-CoV-2 infection in VeroE6 cells. (a) Pre-treatment of imatinib reduced SARS-CoV-2 infection. Vero E6 cells were pretreated with increasing concentration of imatinib 2 h prior to infection with SARS-CoV-2 at 0.01 MOI, followed by 24 h incubation. The infectious virions were quantified by viral titration. Results represent one of three biological replicates. (b) Imatinib treatment strongly reduced SARS-CoV-2-RNA-levels within the infected cells. VeroE6 cells were imatinib treated and 2 h later infected with SARS-CoV-2. At 24 h, cells were harvested for RNA extraction. The level of viral RNA was quantified by real-time PCR and normalized to βActin RNA level. Results represent three technical replicates. (c) Imatinib treatment before SARS-CoV-2 infection is more effective than after infection. VeroE6 cells were infected with SARS-CoV-2 at 0.01 MOI and 2 h later treated with imatinib for 48 h. Results represent four technical replicates. In panels (a) to (c) data were statistically evaluated with One-Way ANOVA and Dunnett posttest. The data are normalized for the imatinib toxic effects according to XTT results of Fig. S1. *p ≤ 0.05; **p ≤ 0.01; ***p ≤ 0.001.