New small-molecule drug design strategies for fighting resistant influenza A
Influenza A virus is the major cause of seasonal or pandemic flu worldwide. Two main treatment strategies–vaccination and small molecule anti-influenza drugs are currently available. As an effective vaccine usually takes at least 6 months to develop, anti-influenza small molecule drugs are more effe...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2015-09-01
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| Series: | Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211383515001148 |
| Summary: | Influenza A virus is the major cause of seasonal or pandemic flu worldwide. Two main treatment strategies–vaccination and small molecule anti-influenza drugs are currently available. As an effective vaccine usually takes at least 6 months to develop, anti-influenza small molecule drugs are more effective for the first line of protection against the virus during an epidemic outbreak, especially in the early stage. Two major classes of anti-influenza drugs currently available are admantane-based M2 protein blockers (amantadine and rimantadine) and neuraminidase (NA) inhibitors (oseltamivir, zanamivir, and peramivir). However, the continuous evolvement of influenza A virus and the rapid emergence of resistance to current drugs, particularly to amantadine, rimantadine, and oseltamivir, have raised an urgent need for developing new anti-influenza drugs against resistant forms of influenza A virus. In this review, we first give a brief introduction of the molecular mechanisms behind resistance, and then discuss new strategies in small-molecule drug development to overcome influenza A virus resistance targeting mutant M2 proteins and neuraminidases, and other viral proteins not associated with current drugs. |
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| ISSN: | 2211-3835 2211-3843 |