Antiviral activity of sodium fusidate and related compounds

Antiviral Activity of Approved Antibacterial, Antifungal, Antiprotozoal and Anthelmintic Drugs: Chances for Drug Repurposing for Antiviral Drug Discovery

Drug repurposing process aims to identify new uses for the existing drugs to overcome traditional de novo drug discovery and development challenges. At the same time, as viral infections became a serious threat to humans and the viral organism itself has a high ability to mutate genetically, and due to serious adverse effects that result from antiviral drugs, there are crucial needs for the discovery of new antiviral drugs, and to identify new antiviral effects for the exciting approved drugs towards different types of viral infections depending on the observed antiviral activity in preclinical studies or clinical findings is one of the approaches to counter the viral infections problems. This narrative review article summarized mainly the published preclinical studies that evaluated the antiviral activity of drugs that are approved and used mainly as antibacterial, antifungal, antiprotozoal, and anthelmintic drugs, and the preclinical studies included the in silico, in vitro, and in vivo findings, additionally some clinical observations were also included while trying to relate them to the preclinical findings. Finally, the structure used for writing about the antiviral activity of the drugs was according to the families of the viruses used in the studies to form a better image for the target of antiviral activity of different drugs in the different kinds of viruses and to relate between the antiviral activity of the drugs against different strains of viruses within the same viral family.

Bioactivities and Structure-Activity Relationships of Fusidic Acid Derivatives: A Review

Fusidic acid (FA) is a natural tetracyclic triterpene isolated from fungi, which is clinically used for systemic and local staphylococcal infections, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci infections. FA and its derivatives have been shown to possess a wide range of pharmacological activities, including antibacterial, antimalarial, antituberculosis, anticancer, tumor multidrug resistance reversal, anti-inflammation, antifungal, and antiviral activity in vivo and in vitro. The semisynthesis, structural modification and biological activities of FA derivatives have been extensively studied in recent years. This review summarized the biological activities and structure-activity relationship (SAR) of FA in the last two decades. This summary can prove useful information for drug exploration of FA derivatives.

Synthesis of fusidic acid bioisosteres as antiplasmodial agents and molecular docking studies in the binding site of elongation factor-G

Structural modifications through bioisosteric approach yielded fusidic acid analogues with 2–35 folds increase in antiplasmodial activity as compared to fusidic acid.

Effect of bile salts and of fusidic acid on HIV-1 infection of cultured cells

Bile salts completely inactivated human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in vitro and, unexpectedly, completely destroyed all the cultured persistently HIV-1 infected T cells. Fusidic acid, which likewise possesses the properties of an anionic surfactant, inactivated HIV-1 only at concentrations toxic to uninfected cultured cells. Bile salts or their derivatives, and other anionic surfactants, could be of therapeutic value in HIV-1 infections.

The Continuing Search for Antiviral Drugs

This chapter discusses the continuing search for antiviral drugs. Many virus diseases, both of humans and animals, have been successfully controlled by vaccines. These successes have naturally led to improvements in the spectrum and duration of protection offered by vaccines until, at present it is difficult to see how antiviral drugs could compete with vaccines in the control of many virus diseases. One may cite smallpox, yellow fever, polio, and recently measles among human diseases, Newcastle disease, Marek's disease, and infectious bronchitis among poultry diseases—an area of veterinary disease control where vaccines have been particularly important. Research into the treatment of virus diseases by drugs is at present directed toward three general areas: (1) attempts to stimulate the defense mechanism of the host animal, (2) large screening programs to find drugs which directly block some virus-specific process, and (3) alleviation of the symptoms of the disease. The treatment of the symptoms, rather than the cause of a disease, has been the mainstay of medical practice from time immemorial, and this is still the case with most virus disease. The short incubation period of many virus diseases will inevitably restrict the therapeutic use of antiviral drugs and in cases where symptoms have already appeared.