A painful lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic: the need for broad-spectrum, host-directed antivirals

Abstract While the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred intense research and collaborative discovery worldwide, the development of a safe, effective, and targeted antiviral from the ground up is time intensive. Therefore, most antiviral discovery efforts are focused on the re-purposing of clinical stage or approved drugs. While emerging data on drugs undergoing COVID-19 repurpose are intriguing, there is an undeniable need to develop broad-spectrum antivirals to prevent future viral pandemics of unknown origin. The ideal drug to curtail rapid viral spread would be a broad-acting agent with activity against a wide range of viruses. Such a drug would work by modulating host-proteins that are often shared by multiple virus families thereby enabling preemptive drug development and therefore rapid deployment at the onset of an outbreak. Targeting host-pathways and cellular proteins that are hijacked by viruses can potentially offer broad-spectrum targets for the development of future antiviral drugs. Such host-directed antivirals are also likely to offer a higher barrier to the development and selection of drug resistant mutations. Given that most approved antivirals do not target host-proteins, we reinforce the need for the development of such antivirals that can be used in pre- and post-exposure populations..

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:18

Enthalten in:

Journal of translational medicine - 18(2020), 1 vom: 15. Okt.

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Chitalia, Vipul C. [VerfasserIn]
Munawar, Ali H. [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext [kostenfrei]

Themen:

Antiviral drug design
Broad-spectrum antivirals
COVID-19
Coronavirus (CoV)
Drug design strategies
Drug discovery and development
Host-directed antivirals
Mechanism of action (MOA)
Pandemics
Prophylactic antiviral therapy
SARS-CoV-2

Anmerkungen:

© The Author(s) 2020

doi:

10.1186/s12967-020-02476-9

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

OLC2120079706