{"doi":"10.2147/opth.s340576","title":"The in vitro Evaluation of the Activity of COVID-19 Antiviral Drugs Against Adenovirus","abstract":"Purpose: Presently, there is no approved antiviral therapy for adenovirus (HAdV) ocular infections. During the COVID-19 pandemic, increased attention has been focused on antiviral treatments. Remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and umifenovir (Arbidol) have been touted as potential antiviral treatments for COVID-19. The goal of the current study was to determine whether these potential COVID-19 antivirals produce in vitro antiviral activity against a panel of ocular adenovirus types. Methods: The 50% effective concentrations (EC 50 ) of remdesivir (REM), hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), ivermectin (IVM), umifenovir (UMF) and cidofovir (CDV) (positive antiviral control) were determined for the human HAdV types HAdV3, HAdV4, HAdV5, HAdV7a, HAdV8, HAdV19/64 and HAdV37 using standard plaque-reduction assays in A549 cells. Results: The range of mean in vitro EC 50 concentrations for each antiviral across the range of HAdV types is as follows: The positive antiviral control, CDV, ranged from 0.47 to 9.62 μM; REM ranged from 0.21 to 11.27 μM; UMF ranged from 3.72 to 64.8 μM; IVR ranged from 2.60 to 201.3 μM; and HCQ was > 10 μM for all Ad types because of toxicity to the A549 cells. REM produced lower EC 50 concentrations than CDV for 6 of 7 HAdV types. Potency increases with lower EC 50 concentrations. Conclusion: REM demonstrated anti-adenovirus activity in a range similar to that demonstrated by cidofovir. UMF and IVR demonstrated larger ranges of antiviral activity than CDV and REM across the panel of HAdV types. The anti-adenovirus activity of HCQ could not be determined due to cytotoxicity. Further investigation of REM, UMF, and IVR as antivirals for adenovirus is indicated. Keywords: adenovirus, remdesivir, ivermectin, umifenovir, in vitro, antiviral","journal":"Clinical ophthalmology","year":2021,"id":205218,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9584,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":583406,"name":"Kathleen A. Yates","orcid":"0000-0002-8995-8121","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":583903,"name":"John E. Romanowski","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":425714,"name":"Robert M. Q. Shanks","orcid":"0000-0002-7699-5396","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":699394,"name":"Regis P. Kowalski","orcid":"0000-0002-8558-0782","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":583405,"name":"Eric G. Romanowski","orcid":"0000-0003-4246-3276","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":36,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:51:30.197308Z","pmid":"35221670","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}