Key result
The small molecule RAF265 reduced viral loads of HSV-1 by 4 orders of magnitude in Vero cells and reduced virus proliferation in vivo.
Why the study?
Repurposing pharmaceutical drugs as host-targeting antivirals is emerging as a cost- and time-efficient strategy to identify broad-spectrum therapies with a low risk of drug resistance.
Does RAF265 reduce HSV-1 viral load in Vero cells and in vivo models?
Does RAF265 reduce HSV-1 viral load in Vero cells and in vivo models?
The anticancer drug RAF265 demonstrates potent antiviral activity against HSV-1 by mediating cytoskeleton rearrangement and targeting host cell translation machinery.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Identifies candidate HTAs for HSV-1; leaves open clinical translation pending in vivo validation.
Host-targeting antivirals (HTAs) have received increasing attention for their potential as broad-spectrum antivirals that pose relatively low risk of developing drug resistance. The repurposing of pharmaceutical drugs for use as antivirals is emerging as a cost- and time- efficient approach to developing HTAs for the treatment of a variety of viral infections. In this study, we used a virus titer method to screen 30 small molecules for antiviral activity against Herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1). We found that the small molecule RAF265, an anticancer drug that has been shown to be a potent inhibitor of B-RAF V600E, reduced viral loads of HSV-1 by 4 orders of magnitude in Vero cells and reduced virus proliferation in vivo. RAF265 mediated cytoskeleton rearrangement and targeted the host cell's translation machinery, which suggests that the antiviral activity of RAF265 may be attributed to a dual inhibition strategy. This study offers a starting point for further advances toward clinical development of antivirals against HSV-1.
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Li et al. (2022) studied Herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) infection. RAF265 was evaluated on Viral load of HSV-1. The small molecule RAF265 reduced viral loads of HSV-1 by 4 orders of magnitude in Vero cells and reduced virus proliferation in vivo.
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