Assessment of the therapeutic potential of salubrinal for ME/CFS and long-COVID.
Warrayat, Aseel, Ali, Ayah, Waked, Joulin et al. · Trends in molecular medicine · 2025 · DOI
Quick Summary
This review article examines whether a drug called salubrinal might help people with ME/CFS and long-COVID. The researchers explain that both conditions involve stress inside cells that may contribute to symptoms. Salubrinal works by reducing this cellular stress, which could potentially help patients feel better. The authors call for more research and clinical trials to test whether this approach actually works in people.
Why It Matters
ME/CFS and long-COVID patients lack approved treatments, making mechanistic reviews that identify novel drug candidates valuable for guiding future research. Understanding potential cellular mechanisms shared between these conditions could accelerate development of therapies targeting the root causes rather than just symptoms. This work highlights ER stress as a potentially modifiable pathway worth investigating in clinical trials.
Observed Findings
Salubrinal is an agent known to influence endoplasmic reticulum and cellular stress pathways
Long-COVID shares significant commonality with ME/CFS in symptoms and disease characteristics
ER/cellular stress responses are proposed as relevant to both ME/CFS and long-COVID pathophysiology
No current cure exists for ME/CFS, creating clinical need for novel therapeutic approaches
Inferred Conclusions
Salubrinal's known mechanism of reducing ER stress suggests potential therapeutic benefit for ME/CFS and long-COVID patients
Further research and clinical trials are warranted to test salubrinal's actual efficacy in these populations
The shared characteristics between ME/CFS and long-COVID support investigating common cellular mechanisms
Remaining Questions
Does salubrinal actually improve symptoms in ME/CFS or long-COVID patients? Clinical trials are needed to answer this.
What is the relative importance of ER stress compared to other cellular mechanisms in ME/CFS pathophysiology?
Are there biomarkers of ER stress that could help identify which patients might benefit most from salubrinal?
What This Study Does Not Prove
This review does not prove that salubrinal is effective in ME/CFS or long-COVID patients, as it contains no clinical trial data or patient outcomes. It does not establish that ER stress is definitively the primary cause of these conditions, only that it may contribute. The theoretical connection between salubrinal's mechanism and symptom improvement remains unvalidated by human studies.