Suramin is a potent inhibitor of Chikungunya and Ebola virus cell entry.

Lisa Henß,Stephan Becker,Nadine Biedenkopf,Simon Beck,Tatjana Weidner,Barbara S Schnierle,Christopher Weber,Katja Sliva

doi:10.1186/s12985-016-0607-2

Lisa Henß, Stephan Becker + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1186/s12985-016-0607-2

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Abstract

BackgroundChikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus that causes high fever, rash, and recurrent arthritis in humans. It has efficiently adapted to Aedes albopictus, which also inhabits temperate regions and currently causes large outbreaks in the Caribbean and Latin America. Ebola virus (EBOV) is a member of the filovirus family. It causes the Ebola virus disease (EDV), formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever in humans and has a mortality rate of up to 70 %. The last outbreak in Western Africa was the largest in history and has caused approximately 25,000 cases and 10,000 deaths. For both viral infections no specific treatment or licensed vaccine is currently available. The bis-hexasulfonated naphthylurea, suramin, is used as a treatment for trypanosome-caused African river blindness. As a competitive inhibitor of heparin, suramin has been described to have anti-viral activity.MethodsWe tested the activity of suramin during CHIKV or Ebola virus infection, using CHIKV and Ebola envelope glycoprotein pseudotyped lentiviral vectors and wild-type CHIKV and Ebola virus.ResultsSuramin efficiently inhibited CHIKV and Ebola envelope-mediated gene transfer while vesicular stomatitis virus G protein pseudotyped vectors were only marginally affected. In addition, suramin was able to inhibit wild-type CHIKV and Ebola virus replication in vitro. Inhibition occurred at early time points during CHIKV infection.ConclusionSuramin, also known as Germanin or Bayer-205, is a market-authorized drug, however shows significant side effects, which probably prevents its use as a CHIKV drug, but due to the high lethality of Ebola virus infections, suramin might be valuable against Ebola infections.

Highlights

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus that causes high fever, rash, and recurrent arthritis in humans
The Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquitotransmitted alphavirus that causes flu-like symptoms and arthritis
Plasmids and DNA The gene for the CHIKV E3-E1 envelope polyprotein was expressed from plasmid pIRES2-eGFP-CHIKV E3-E1 [12] and the Zaire Ebola virus envelope polyprotein gene was obtained from C

Summary

Introduction

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus that causes high fever, rash, and recurrent arthritis in humans. The last outbreak in Western Africa was the largest in history and has caused approximately 25,000 cases and 10,000 deaths. For both viral infections no specific treatment or licensed vaccine is currently available. The virus currently spreads from Africa and the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean and Latin America and is responsible for large, still-ongoing outbreaks with 1.7 million suspected cases as of October 2014 (www.cdc.gov). As of May 12th, 2016 an estimated number of 28,616 cases and 11.310 deaths have been reported (www.CDC.gov) For both viral infections no treatment or licensed vaccine exists [2, 6, 7]

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