treatment of viral disease Flashcards
antiviral therapy: list examples of classes of drugs which have been used successfully in antiviral therapy, and explain the specific strategy of using acyclovir and other nucleoside analogues as antiviral drugs
what induces body’s natural antiviral treatment
interferons
targets for antiviral drugs
mostly viral enzymes, acting as substrate analogues or are cancer-drug like nucleoside analogues
describe nucleoside analogues
similar structure to nucleosides that lack a 3’ hydroxyl group, so chain terminated as phosphodiester bond formation prevented
acyclovir: when is it activated
only activated inside virus infected cells
acyclovir: how is it activated
given as pro-drug which is un-phosphorylated - only viral thymidine kinase (e.g. in herpes) can form monophosphate precursor that host cell turns to triphosphate
acyclovir: significance of viral thymidine kinase activation
only included in viral genome
acyclovir: how is resistance rare
much higher affinity for viral DNA polymerase vs host cell
