Targeting Zika Virus with New Brain- and Placenta-Crossing Peptide-Porphyrin Conjugates.
Toni TodorovskiDiogo A MendonçaLorena O Fernandes-SiqueiraChristine Cruz-OliveiraGiuseppina GuidaJavier ValleMarco CavacoFernanda I V LimasVera NevesÍris Cadima-CoutoSira DefausAna Salomé VeigaAndrea T Da PoianMiguel A R B CastanhoDavid AndreuPublished in: Pharmaceutics (2022)
Viral disease outbreaks affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide and remain a serious threat to global health. The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and other recent geographically- confined viral outbreaks (severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola, dengue, zika and ever-recurring seasonal influenza), also with devastating tolls at sanitary and socio-economic levels, are sobering reminders in this respect. Among the respective pathogenic agents, Zika virus (ZIKV), transmitted by Aedes mosquito vectors and causing the eponymous fever, is particularly insidious in that infection during pregnancy results in complications such as foetal loss, preterm birth or irreversible brain abnormalities, including microcephaly. So far, there is no effective remedy for ZIKV infection, mainly due to the limited ability of antiviral drugs to cross blood-placental and/or blood-brain barriers (BPB and BBB, respectively). Despite its restricted permeability, the BBB is penetrable by a variety of molecules, mainly peptide-based, and named BBB peptide shuttles (BBBpS), able to ferry various payloads (e.g., drugs, antibodies, etc.) into the brain. Recently, we have described peptide-porphyrin conjugates (PPCs) as successful BBBpS-associated drug leads for HIV, an enveloped virus in which group ZIKV also belongs. Herein, we report on several brain-directed, low-toxicity PPCs capable of targeting ZIKV. One of the conjugates, PP-P1, crossing both BPB and BBB, has shown to be effective against ZIKV (IC 50 1.08 µM) and has high serum stability (t 1/2 ca. 22 h) without altering cell viability at all tested concentrations. Peptide-porphyrin conjugation stands out as a promising strategy to fill the ZIKV treatment gap.
Keyphrases
- zika virus
- dengue virus
- aedes aegypti
- sars cov
- resting state
- white matter
- blood brain barrier
- preterm birth
- cancer therapy
- cerebral ischemia
- photodynamic therapy
- global health
- functional connectivity
- coronavirus disease
- antiretroviral therapy
- hiv infected
- human immunodeficiency virus
- oxidative stress
- endothelial cells
- metal organic framework
- drug delivery
- respiratory syndrome coronavirus
- hiv aids
- gene therapy
- autism spectrum disorder
- smoking cessation
- south africa