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Researchers have identified 2-thiouridine as a potential antiviral drug that targets positive-strand RNA viruses, including dengue, Zika, and SARS-CoV-2. This drug may be effective against a range of diseases caused by these viruses.
A broad-spectrum antiviral drug candidate, 2-thiouridine, that targets positive-strand RNA viruses has been identified and characterized.
Positive-strand RNA viruses (ssRNA+ viruses) are a group of viruses which includes many disease-causing viruses such as dengue virus, Zika virus, yellow fever virus, Japanese encephalitis virus, West Nile virus, Chikungunya virus, SARS-CoV-2, and the rhinoviruses and coronaviruses that cause the common cold. Currently, no effective antiviral drugs targeting dengue virus have been approved for clinical use.
Researchers at Hokkaido University, led by Professor Katsumi Maenaka, Emeritus Professor Akira Matsuda, and Visiting Professor Akihiko Sato have identified 2-thiouridine (s2U), a uridine analog, as a candidate for an ssRNA+ virus-targeting antiviral drug. Their findings, which also characterize its mode of action, were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The genetic material of ssRNA+ viruses is positive-strand RNA,” explains Maenaka. “This means that it can function both as a genome, to replicate, and as messenger RNA, to synthesize proteins. Thus, upon infection, the most important protein synthesized is a viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp); this protein is an ideal drug target, as it is viral in origin and is