Antiviral agents Flashcards
What is meant by selective toxicity?
An important quality for an antimicrobial drug is selective toxicity, meaning that it selectively kills or inhibits the growth of microbial targets while causing minimal or no harm to the host.
Tell me about the prospects of selective toxicity with viruses.
What do viruses hijack?
What do viruses possesss?
How will the drugs have to vary and why?
- Since viruses hijack the host cell’s machinery, the prospects for selective toxicity do not look good.
- But viruses are different! They possess their own structural proteins and some of their own enzymes.
- Need to understand the molecular details of the virus life cycle to look for potential targets.
- The differences will be virus-specific, so we are unlikely to find a “broad spectrum” antiviral as they are specific to structural proteins or genetics of target
Why is immunisation not very useful with viruses?
- Only prophylactic- once infected vaccination is too late as something that is prophylactic is intended to prevent disease
- New viral serotypes i.e., mutation
- Non-immunogenic- some viruses can’t have vaccines against them e.g., HIV
What is meant by a positive stranded virus?
Positive-strand RNA viruses are a group of related viruses that have positive-sense, single-stranded genomes made of ribonucleic acid.
The positive-sense genome can act as messenger RNA and can be directly translated into viral proteins by the host cell’s ribosomes
Give some examples of RNA containing, positive stranded viruses
- Picornaviruses e.g., genera Enterovirus (including Poliovirus and Rhinovirus)
- Coronavirus
- Hepatitis C
What is meant by a negative stranded virus?
Negative-strand RNA viruses are a group of related viruses that have negative-sense, single-stranded genomes made of ribonucleic acid.
They have genomes that act as complementary strands from which messenger RNA is synthesized by the viral enzyme RNA-dependent RNA polymerase
Give some examples of RNA containing, negative stranded viruses?
- Myoxviruses e.g., Influenza
- Paramyxoviruses e.g., Measles, mumps, rubella, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus)
- Rhabdoviruses e.g., Rabies
- Filoviridae e.g., Ebola
- Retroviruses e.g., HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus)
Give some examples of DNA containing viruses?
- Papoviruses e.g., Warts
- Adenoviruses
- Herpes e.g., Zoster, Simplex, Epstein Barr, CMV (Cytomegalovirus)
- Poxviruses e.g., smallpox
How do eukaryotic viruses work (tell me about DNA and RNA)?
In eukaryotic cells, most DNA viruses can replicate inside the nucleus, with an exception observed in the large DNA viruses, such as the poxviruses, that can replicate in the cytoplasm.
RNA viruses that infect animal cells often replicate in the cytoplasm.
What is tissue tropism?
Tissue tropism is the cells and tissues of a host that support growth of a particular virus or bacterium.
Some bacteria and viruses have a broad tissue tropism and can infect many types of cells and tissues.
Other viruses may infect primarily a single tissue. For example, rabies virus affects primarily neuronal tissue.
What are the stages to the virus life cycle?
- Adsorption
- Penetration
- Uncoating
- Processing
- Packaging
- Release

In the first stage of the viral life cycle, attachment/adsorption, what are the three types of entry?
- Membrane fusion
- Endocytosis
- Viral penetration
Whats Membrane fusion?
Provide examples of viruses that do this?
Fusion of viral envelope with membrane and capsid uptake e.g., influenza, HIV and Herpes
Whats endocytosis?
Provide an example of a virus that does this
In the absense of envelope, capsid enter by hijacking endocytotic pathways
e.g., polio
Whats Viral penetration?
Provide an example of a virus that does this
direct injection of nucleic acids
e.g., bacteriophage
Tell me general information about the attachment/ adsorption stage of the viral life cycle
- To enter by membrane fusion the virus must first attach to the cell membrane
- Attachment is achieved between proteins on the capsid or viral envelope and complementary proteins (often receptors) on the cell membrane
- Presence of these proteins determines which cells/tissues will get infected.

Tell me about the uncoating stage of the viral life cycle?
What it is and what is requires

- It may be pH dependent via proton channels (e.g., influenza, rhinovirus) Or require new protein synthesis e.g., pox viruses
- host enzymes expose the core (virus specific RNA polymerase → mRNA for uncoating protein → degrades core releasing naked DNA)- used for making protein which comes back and then uncoats the virus
- This second stage of uncoating requires protein synthesis
Some viruses encode proteins that help synthesise nuclic acid precursors, give an example fo this and what it does
- Some viruses encode proteins that help synthesise nucleic acid precursors
- For example, thymidine kinase (TK) is responsible for the phosphorylation of any nucleosides to their monophosphates e.g., adenosine –> adenosine monophosphate
- TK is also naturally present in the host cell
- Despite its name, TK works on all nucleosides (A, G, C, T, U)

Tell me about the replication stage of the DNA and RNA virus life cycle

DNA viruses
- Often code for their own DNA polymerase e.g., herpes
RNA viruses
- -ve stranded (e.g., influenza) require RNA replicase (RNA→RNA) to make a complimentary strand and we don’t have this enzyme as it’s a viral enzyme
- Retroviruses (e.g., HIV) use reverse transcriptase (RNA –> DNA) and we don’t have that enzyme either
Tell me about the processing stage of the viral life cycle
Often the mRNA is translated into one long polyprotein (non-functional), which is the cleaved to produce the individual viral proteins (functional) – done by a viral protease (e.g., polio, HIV, HCV)
Tell me about the packaging of viruses in the viral life cycle
- Assembling the complete viral particle
- Many contain multiple nucleic acid strands (e.g., influenza contains 8 RNA strands)
Tell me about the release of viruses in the viral life cycle
The virus buds from the surface of the cell (influenza)
Give some examples of viral targets and the processes they are involved in
- Structural proteins (absorption, uncoating)
- Proteases (uncoating, processing)
- Thymidine kinase a metabolic precursor
- Polymerases (DNA polymerase, RNA replicase, reverse transcriptase)
Tell me the typical viral lifecycle targets at each stage of the virus life cycle





























































