Chloroquine mediated alterations in mammalian cell metabolism and viral replication.

Abstract

Chloroquine is an effective antimalarial drug that has also been successfully employed clinically in treating lupus erythematosus (1), as well as rheumatoid arthritis (2). A number of studies performed to examine the biological effects of chloroquine have revealed a diversity of activities. Some of the drug effects included a stabilization of lysosomal membranes (3), an activation of E. coli tyrosine transfer ribonucleic acid (RNA) (4), binding to bacterial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) with an alteration of the polymerase reactions (5-8) and an inhibition of a number of metabolic enzymes such as alcohol dehydrogenase (9) and succinic dehydrogenase (10). There is a relative paucity of information describing the effects of chloroquine on mammalian cell metabolism and no information on the effects of this drug on the replication of animal viruses. Since chloroquine is employed clinically as well as for investigative purposes, this study sought to examine the effect of this drug on mammalian cell biosynthetic ...