Antiviral agents Flashcards
What is a virion?
A virus particle outside a cell
What is episomal latency?
Viral nucleic acids remain inactive but free in the cytoplasm or nucleus of the infected cell
What is proviral latency?
The viral nucleic acid becomes incorporated into the DNA of the infected host cell. It is now termed a provirus, however, with episomal latency, the viral nucleic acid can be reactivated any time
What is prophylaxis?
A preventative measure, a prophylactic is a medication or a treatment designed to prevent the occurrence of disease, preventing disease before the aetiological agent is acquired. Example: vaccination or administration of the drug before the infection
What are the vaccines?
Prophylactic treatment; attenuated pathogens and (antigenic fragments), involves herd immunity and target group safety > efficacy; provided by the WHO/government
What is therapy in terms of drug treatment?
Treating a diagnosed patient upon host infection, antiviral therapy and diagnostics are coupled, diagnostic measures are regulated to identify the specific drug towards treating the particular virus.
Antiviral drugs: Therapeutic random screening for specific effective chemicals or employ hypothesis-driven rational design; prescribed to target group on ad hoc basis
What are nucleosides?
Substrate analogs; nucleosides incorporated through viral DNA/RNA synthesis. Nucleosides are chemically modified, altering the affinity in order to selectively target viral enzymes
What is rational drug design?
Employed to specifically target viral components, and structure (crystallography), molecules can degrade the structure
What is AZT, which viral enzyme does it inhibit?
Resembles a nucleotide and competitively inhibits the enzyme reverse transcriptase
What is acyclovir, which viral enzyme does it inhibit?
Cyclic guanosine analog, behaving as a chain terminator of polynucleotide DNA elongation viral DNA polymerase
What is Tamiflu?
A competitive inhibitor of the viral enzyme neuraminidase that many viruses, including the influenza virus use to escape from cells
What is ribavirin?
It resembles an RNA nucleotide, and inserts into viral RNA, preventing translation from occurring. Therefore, this means that the production of new viral proteins for capsids or viral genomes cannot occur.
What is the mechanism of action for acyclovir?
Modified nucleoside incorporated into DNA.Lack of 3-prime OH prevents phosphodiester bond formation.
Which analog is acyclovir?
A cyclic analog of 2’deoxyguanosine
Which viral enzymes activates the inactivate acyclovir analog?
Thymidine kinase
What function is performed by thymidine kinase?
A phosphotransferase responsible for the phosphorylation of nucleosides to nucleotides
Which enzyme phosphorylates Acylo-GMP to GDP?
Guanylate kinase
What forms via the phosphorylation of acyclovir?
Acylo-GMP
What phosphorylates Acylo-GMP to TP?
Phosphotransferase
how does acyclovir selectively target viral DNA?
Higher affinity for viral DNA polymerase than host cell DNA Polymerase
How does Acylo-GTP cause chain inhibition?
The absence of the 3-hydroxy group means that further phosphodiester bonds cannot form under condensation reactions -ceasing polynucleotide elongation (No further nucleotides can be attached) - chain termination (Vial particles cannot replicate)