Chikungunya New treatment option against the increasingly common virus

New substance class as a potential drug against Chikungunya and other viral infections
Originally, the Chikungunya virus was mainly distributed in the tropics, but in recent years, also in Europe first regional outbreaks occurred. In the search for treatment options against Chikungunya, an international research team has now discovered, among other things, a new class of potentially antiviral drugs.

The scientists used a new strategy for the search for treatment options against Chiungunya and identified with their help both already known drugs and a new class of compounds, which offers the potential for use as an antiviral drug, reported the Ludwig-Maximillians-University Munich (LMU) , from whose side the pharmacist Franz Bracher was involved in the investigations. Not only against Chikungunya, but also against other pathogenic viruses, the discovered substance class could be used, so the researchers hope. The researchers have published the results of their study in the journal "Nature Communications".

With an innovative approach, researchers have discovered new treatment options against Chikungunya infections that could also be used against other pathogenic viruses. (Image: jarun011 / fotolia.com)

Spread of the virus also in Europe
According to the LMU, the Chikungunya virus has increasingly spread to the north in recent years and has already reached the southern US. In Europe also some regional outbreaks are documented. The virus is transmitted by the Asian tiger mosquito and the consequences are flu-like symptoms that last for months and in rare cases can even lead to death. As neither a vaccine nor a licensed drug for chikungunya is currently available, the international research team was looking for new approaches to the treatment of viral infection. For this purpose, the scientists used an innovative strategy, with which new treatment options can be established faster than previously - and thereby identified corresponding active ingredients - can be, reports the LMU.

Viruses need human proteins for reproduction
The researchers took advantage of the fact that pathogens for propagation require certain proteins that are formed by the host cell. In a first step, Thomas F. Meyer and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology first identified, with the help of genome-wide screening, those proteins that the virus absolutely needs for its multiplication in affected human host cells. In a complex automated process, the researchers switched off "every single gene of the human cells, infected the cells so changed and then analyzed the extent of virus multiplication," according to the LMU. In this way, the scientists were able to identify more than 100 human proteins, which are essential for the propagation of the virus.

Inhibit the virus multiplication
Based on the findings, the researchers analyzed in cooperation with virologists from the Institut Pasteur (Paris) as well as researchers from the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Steinbeis Innovation Center in Berlin as well as the Institute of Technology in Tartu (Estonia) and the group of Franz Bracher at the LMU in a next step, which substances drive these important human proteins. The identified substances, which may also inhibit virus proliferation, include both drugs already used for the treatment of other diseases but not yet considered for the treatment of viral infections, as well as novel low molecular weight drugs such as so-called inhibitors of the protein kinase CLK1, which were synthesized in our laboratory, "reports Franz Bracher of the study results.

New antiviral drugs possible
Interestingly, the discovered substance class can not only be used against the Chikungunya virus, but could also act against other pathogenic viruses. According to the first findings of the researchers, the principle seems to be transferable to other pathogenic viruses as well, reports the LMU. Franz Bracher emphasizes that the innovative approach not only identifies well-characterized active substances from other therapeutic indications for use against a specific infectious disease and then releases them relatively quickly as anti-infective agents. There is also the opportunity to identify "completely new classes of compounds as potential agents," as in the case of our kinase inhibitors, Bracher continued. (Fp)