camostat

CHEBI:135632 ·resolve ·ANTIVIRAL ·EXACT REVIEWED

A benzoate ester resulting from the formal condensation of the carboxy group of 4-guanidinobenzoic acid with the hydroxy group of 2-(dimethylamino)-2-oxoethyl (4-hydroxyphenyl)acetate. It is a potent inhibitor of the human transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) and its mesylate salt is currently under investigation for its effectiveness in COVID-19 patients. — ChEBI

Classification

Strictly broader compounds or drug classes this molecule belongs to.

• Label unavailable CHEBI:140326
• Label unavailable CHEBI:24436
• Label unavailable CHEBI:33308
• Label unavailable CHEBI:36054
• Label unavailable CHEBI:51307

Chemical structure

SMILES

CN(C)C(=O)COC(=O)Cc1ccc(OC(=O)c2ccc(NC(=N)N)cc2)cc1

InChI

InChI=1S/C20H22N4O5/c1-24(2)17(25)12-28-18(26)11-13-3-9-16(10-4-13)29-19(27)14-5-7-15(8-6-14)23-20(21)22/h3-10H,11-12H2,1-2H3,(H4,21,22,23)

Also called

• camostatum (INN)— chebi
• 4-{2-[2-(dimethylamino)-2-oxoethoxy]-2-oxoethyl}phenyl 4-carbamimidamidobenzoate (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
• 4-{2-[(dimethylcarbamoyl)methoxy]-2-oxoethyl}phenyl 4-carbamimidamidobenzoate (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
• N,N-dimethylcarbamoylmethyl 4-(4-guanidinobenzoyloxy)phenylacetate (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi

Cross-references

Identifiers for this same structure in other resources. An accession that lands on two different structures in this corpus is withheld from both rather than shown here, since it names at most one of them.

• cas:59721-28-7
• chemspider:2440

Drug registries

Identifiers that name a drug rather than a structure. One of these can cover a parent compound, its salts and its stereoisomers, which this corpus keeps as separate records, so it is not an equivalence of structure.

• drugbank:DB13729
• drugcentral:471
• kegg.drug:D07606

Patents and articles

Documents about this compound. A patent covers a class and an article covers a topic; neither identifies a structure.

• wikipedia.en:Camostat

Activity roles

Every antimicrobial role a source asserts for this compound — the unreduced evidence behind its antimicrobial_class.

• anticoronaviral agent CHEBI:149553
• antiviral agent CHEBI:22587

Source concepts

Every upstream concept that resolved to this record. The merge is the product: this is what shows ChEBI and CARD are describing the same structure.

Molecular targets

The molecular entity or process this compound acts on. Each target carries evidence — this is a mechanistic claim, not a classification.

host-serine-protease-dependent influenza hemagglutinin activation BIOLOGICAL_PROCESS DOWNSTREAM_AFFECTED_PROCESS

Camostat treatment of primary human tracheal epithelial cells reduced HA0 cleavage to HA1 together with viral RNA and titre; several candidate host proteases were detected, without a direct target assay. Evidence status: PRIMARY_EVIDENCE. Source: PRIMARY_LITERATURE 2015-07 (retrieved 2026-09-02).

• PMID:26166259 (Primary human-airway-cell influenza replication and HA-cleavage study (DOI:10.1016/j.pupt.2015.07.001).)

Mechanism summary

Mode of action

VIRAL_ENTRY_INHIBITION host shared target — CURATOR: In primary human tracheal epithelial cells, PMID:26166259 showed that camostat reduced influenza HA0-to-HA1 cleavage, intracellular viral RNA, and released virus. TMPRSS2, TMPRSS4, and TMPRSS11D/HAT were detected, but the study did not isolate which protease mediated the effect or measure direct camostat binding to one of them.

Record-level evidence

• PMID:26166259 (Primary camostat study in influenza-infected human tracheal epithelial cells.)

Curation history

1. SEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources

   Seeded from data/raw/ inventories (CHEBI)

2. RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources

   Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories

3. RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources

   Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories

4. RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-31 · seed_from_sources

   Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories

5. RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-09-02 · seed_from_sources

   Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories

6. REVIEWED 2026-09-03 · codex · LLM-assisted

   Verified exact ChEBI identity, structure, antiviral and protease-inhibitor roles, and class; added host-protease-dependent viral-entry inhibition while preserving the study's unresolved individual-protease boundary.

7. RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-09-10 · seed_from_sources

   Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories

Provenance

Seeded by scripts/seed_from_sources.py from the committed inventories in data/raw/. View the record (YAML).

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