Abstract
Viral infections are amongst the most common diseases affecting people worldwide. New viruses emerge all the time and presently we have limited number of vaccines and only few antivirals to combat viral diseases. Fungi represent a vast source of bioactive molecules, which could potentially be used as antivirals in the future. Here, we have summarized the current knowledge of fungi as producers of antiviral compounds and discuss their potential applications. In particular, we have investigated how the antiviral action has been assessed and what is known about the molecular mechanisms and actual targets. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of accurate fungal species identification on antiviral and other natural products studies.
Highlights
Viruses cause serious outbreaks in all continents leading to difficult symptoms and mortality, and enormous economic burden for society
Various commercially available viability assays monitoring for, e.g., the cellular ATP levels have been used. These assays are used for performing the time of addition studies and investigating the direct virucidal activity of the fungal extracts (Liu et al, 2004; Faccin et al, 2007). All of these methods calculate in different ways the viability of the cells after virus action, and the antiviral activity is monitored as the rescue of the cells from the viral infection
We showed previously that targeting BCl-molecules, boosting apoptosis, facilitated killing of virus infection early, and prevented possibilities for influenza and Herpes simplex virus (HSV) to develop difficult symptoms usually encountered with virus infection (Bulanova et al, 2017)
Summary
Viruses cause serious outbreaks in all continents leading to difficult symptoms and mortality, and enormous economic burden for society. These assays are used for performing the time of addition studies and investigating the direct virucidal activity of the fungal extracts (Liu et al, 2004; Faccin et al, 2007) All of these methods calculate in different ways the viability of the cells after virus action, and the antiviral activity is monitored as the rescue of the cells from the viral infection. Where CC50 is 50% cytotoxic concentration, i.e., the concentration which caused a 50% reduction in the number of viable cells or in the optical density and IC50 is 50% inhibitory concentration, i.e., the concentration capable of reducing 50% PFU in relation to the controls These above-mentioned methods only affirm the antiviral potential of bioactive compounds and do not reveal any information regarding their mechanism of action.
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