National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 43(118), 2021
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Significance MM3122 represents an advanced lead candidate for clinical development as a novel antiviral drug for COVID-19. In addition to being novel drugs, these selective TMRSS2 inhibitors can be used as valuable chemical probes to help elucidate mechanisms of viral pathogenesis. Since TMPRSS2 plays a key role as a viral protein processing protease in the pathogenesis of other coronaviruses (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV) as well as influenza viruses, MM3122 and this class of TMPRSS2 inhibitors hold much promise as new drugs to not only treat SARS-CoV-2 infections but also potentially represent broad-spectrum antivirals.