Antiviral Nanoparticle Designed to Detect and Destroy a Broad Spectrum of Viruses

New debilitating viral outbreaks seem to come about every few years, leading to thousands of deaths around the world. Unfortunately, viral specific medications take too long to produce and broad medications seem to only temporarily disrupt viral infection. Broad spectrum antiviral medications are all virustatic, meaning that they act outside of the cell by interfering with the interaction between a virus and the cell membrane. Most brad spectrum antiviral medications are nanoparticles which mimic heparin sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs), proteins on eukaryotic cell surfaces which bind to viral attachment ligands (VALs). This competitive inhibition ensures that a virus is unable to bind, an therefore infect, a eukaryotic cell. However, since all current HSPG mimicking nanoparticles contain very short linkers in order to display their VAL binding groups, the actual bond with a VAL is extremely weak. Therefore, upon any sort of dilution (such as when a virus is transferred through biological fluid), the antiviral nanoparticle will be bind to the VAL in a reversible manner, completely defeating the purpose of the medication. In order to circumvent this issue, researchers were interested in changing the mechanism of action of the commonly used antiviral nanoparticle linker, 3-mercaptoethylsulfonate with heparin (MES), from virustatic to virucidal, or viral death inducing. They accomplished this by changing the MES linker to a much longer undecanesulfonic acid (MUS) liker. This change allowed for the antiviral nanoparticle to bind to VALs at multiple regions rather than only a few, significantly increasing the binding strength. This increase in strength, in turn, not only inhibited any future interaction of the virus with eukaryotic cells, but also distorted the viroid to the point of complete viral deformation, essentially killing off the virus’s infectious capability. To further promote the use of these antiviral particles for future clinical trials, the researchers also ensured that that their novel nanoparticle had no negative effects on eukaryotic cell viability. These results were confirmed via virucidal assay, electron microscopy, molecular dynamics assays, in vitro nano molar irreversibility activity, and cytotoxicity assays in Herpes Simplex Virus, Human Papilloma Virus, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Degue, and Lenti Virus.

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