Investigation and analysis of kidney and heart metabolite profiles in rats administered Favipiravir drug using high-resolution NMR spectroscopy

The virus that caused serious respiratory diseases in Wuhan, China in December 2019 was named as SARS-CoV-2 by the World Health Organization, and the disease caused by the virus was named as COVID-19. The first case was announced by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Turkey on March 11, 2020. It has been stated that the use of antiviral drugs shortly after the onset of symptoms shortens the course of clinical disease and reduces viral shedding. One of these antiviral agents is Favipiravir, which was widely used in the treatment of COVID-19 in Turkey. Favipiravir, a selective RNA polymerase inhibitory agent, shows potent antiviral activity against RNA viruses as well as influenza virus. The metabolic effects of Favipiravir, which was removed from the list of drugs used in the treatment of COVID-19 in our country in November 2021, are questioned. Particularly, an increase in complaints of heart attacks and kidney dysfunction has been observed in correlation with the increased use of Favipiravir. This situation has prompted us to investigate the metabolic effects of high doses of Favipiravir on these organs. The aim of this thesis study is to determine whether the use of Favipiravir affects the metabolic profile of the kidney and heart for this purpose, 1H-NMR analysis was performed on kidney and heart samples obtained from rats treated with a control group (n=20), low-dose Favipiravir (n=20), and high-dose Favipiravir (n=20). The obtained metabolomic data were analyzed using multivariate statistical analysis to identify the effect of Favipiravir on metabolites. Keeywords: Favipiravir, Covid-19, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Metabolomics, Multivariate Statistical Analysis