Selective inhibition of hepatitis c virus infection by hydroxyzine and benztropin.

In this study, we have used an unbiased screening cell culture assay to interrogate a chemical library of compounds approved for clinical use in humans. This system enables identifying non-toxic antiviral compounds targeting every aspect of the viral lifecycle, be the target viral or cellular. The aim of this study is to identify drugs approved for other therapeutic applications in humans that could be effective components of combination therapies against HCV. As a result of this analysis we identified twelve compounds with antiviral activity in cell culture, some of which had previously been identified as HCV inhibitors with antiviral activity in cell culture and shown to be effective in patients. We selected two novel HCV antivirals, hydroxyzine and benztropin, to characterize them by determining their specificity and genotype spectrum as well as by defining the step of the replication cycle targeted by these compounds. We found that both compounds effectively inhibited viral entry at a post-binding step of genotypes 1, 2, 3 and 4 without affecting entry of other viruses. PMID: 24709263 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Antimicrob Agents Chemother Source Type: research