Back

The CRAC channel inhibitor Auxora interrupts inflammatory circuits between alveolar macrophages and T cells in patients with viral pneumonia

Casalino-Matsuda, S. M.; Guggilla, V.; Gao, C. A.; Demeulenaere, K. E.; Cusick, L. P.; Fenske, S. W.; Yu, Z.; Lu, Z.; Swaminathan, S.; Grant, R. A.; Schleck, M. J.; Prakriya, M.; Hebbar, S.; Stauderman, K.; Donnelly, H. K.; Pickens, C.; Morales-Nebreda, L.; The NU SCRIPT Study Investigators, ; Wunderink, R. G.; Misharin, A. V.; Singer, B. D.; Budinger, G. S.

2026-05-30 respiratory medicine
10.64898/2026.05.27.26354034 medRxiv
Show abstract

Viral pneumonia is perpetuated by inflammatory circuits between activated T cells and monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages (MoAM). T cells and macrophages express ORAI1 and STIM1, which form calcium release-activated calcium (CRAC) channels that allow extracellular calcium entry in response to endoplasmic reticulum calcium store depletion. In a randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter phase 2 trial (CARDEA), Auxora, a CRAC channel inhibitor, reduced all-cause 30-day mortality by 56% in patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. Here, we report a multi-omics analysis of serially collected alveolar samples from unvaccinated patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia treated with Auxora versus placebo. We found reductions in plasma levels of the monocyte- and T cell-chemokines, CCL8 and PDGF-AA. Using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy volunteers, we show that Auxora directly targets T cells to inhibit the transcription of CCL8 and PDGFA in monocyte-derived macrophages, supporting a mechanism for its effects and a potential intermediate biomarker of efficacy.

Matching journals

The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.