The approved pediatric drug suramin identified as a clinical candidate for the treatment of EV71 infection-suramin inhibits EV71 infection in vitro and in vivo.

Peijun Ren (1, 2, 3) , Gang Zou (2) , Benjamin Bailly (4, 2) , Shanshan Xu (2) , Mei Zeng (5) , Xinsheng Chen (6) , Liang Shen (6) , Ying Zhang (7) , Patrice Guillon (4) , Fernando Arenzana-Seisdedos (1) , Philippe Buchy (8) , Jian Li (6) , Mark von Itzstein (4) , Qihan Li (7) , Ralf Altmeyer (2)

1 Pathogénie Virale - Viral Pathogenesis
2 IPS-CAS - Institut Pasteur de Shanghai, Académie des Sciences de Chine - Chinese Academy of Sciences
3 Cellule Pasteur
4 Institute for Glycomics
5 Department of Infectious Diseases
6 State Key Laboratory of Lead Compound Research
7 Institute of Medical Biology
8 Institut Pasteur du Cambodge

Enterovirus 71 (EV71) causes severe central nervous system infections, leading to cardiopulmonary complications and death in young children. There is an urgent unmet medical need for new pharmaceutical agents to control EV71 infections. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we found that the approved pediatric antiparasitic drug suramin blocked EV71 infectivity by a novel mechanism of action that involves binding of the naphtalentrisulonic acid group of suramin to the viral capsid. Moreover, we demonstrate that when suramin is used in vivo at doses equivalent to or lower than the highest dose already used in humans, it significantly decreased mortality in mice challenged with a lethal dose of EV71 and peak viral load in adult rhesus monkeys. Thus, suramin inhibits EV71 infection by neutralizing virus particles prior to cell attachment. Consequently, these findings identify suramin as a clinical candidate for further development as a therapeutic or prophylactic treatment for severe EV71 infection.

Keywords: anti-viral; drug discovery; enterovirus 71; hand

Domains: Virology

Peijun Ren, Gang Zou, Benjamin Bailly, Shanshan Xu, Mei Zeng, et al.. The approved pediatric drug suramin identified as a clinical candidate for the treatment of EV71 infection-suramin inhibits EV71 infection in vitro and in vivo.. Emerging microbes & infections, 2014, 3 (9), pp.e62. ⟨10.1038/emi.2014.60⟩. ⟨pasteur-01179295⟩