Thread by @nanogenomic

Nicotine exhibits 6.6-fold stronger binding for ACE2 in the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and reduces the binding affinity of the spike protein for the ACE2 receptor.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

The effects of nicotine on increasing antibody binding affinity to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in competition with ACE2 should also be explored.

With new variants exhibiting even stronger ACE2 binding than the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, and while coupling these findings to the decreased binding affinity of neutralizing antibodies to some of the new strains, nicotine may end up serving an immune-enhancing purpose.

While these results should be interpreted cautiously until clinical validation is generated, the structural biology and thermodynamics of binding suggest that this mechanism of action will be helpful therapeutically.

Certainly, please do not interpret this post as a suggestion to pick up smoking, as tobacco has many other deleterious effects both systemically and on the pulmonary system. Still, from a mechanistic standpoint, nicotine patches / gums / sublingual tabs may improve outcomes.

Clinical studies on the efficacy of nicotine patches in preventing COVID-19 infection are ongoing in France: clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04…

The IBM Summit supercomputing studies last year also predicted a number of compounds that reduce binding affinity of ACE2 and the spike protein. Quercetin was one of the top hits.

chemrxiv.org/articles/prepr…