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Microorganisms
Special Issues
Emerging Viruses and Antiviral Drugs, 2nd Edition
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Emerging Viruses and Antiviral Drugs, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Virology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025 | Viewed by 5354

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Veronica Soloveva

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Quantitative Biosciences, Merck, Boston, MA, USA
Interests: antiviral drug discovery; phenotypic drug discovery; HCI
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Miguel A. Martín-Acebes

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biotechnology, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: virus; arbovirus; flavivirus; dengue; West Nile; Zika; zoonoses; lipid; virus–host interaction; sphingolipids; fatty acids; metabolism; antivirals; vaccines
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Sina Bavari

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CSO, Co-founder of Healion Bio, Frederick, MD, USA
Interests: virology; oncology; drug discovery; drug development

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Emerging viruses are a very broad category that includes not only newly discovered viruses but also re-emerging variants of known viruses. These viruses continue to cause mass disruption by creating constant threat to public health. In the last 20 years, we have observed a variety of viral outbreaks, such as severe acute respiratory symptom (SARS), H1N1 influenza, Ebola virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Rift Valley fever, Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, Nipah and Hendra viruses, severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV), yellow fever virus (YFV), Zika virus, and the ongoing SARS-CoV-2. The globalization of the economies and quick-paced traveling patterns of human populations, combined with climate change, are creating ample opportunities for mass spread of viral infections. The multiple surges of SARS-CoV-2 variants have quickly exposed the challenges and limitations of vaccines and various antiviral treatments. For example, SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission has proven difficult to manage with current vaccines and therapeutic approaches. There is a strong need to position immune modulating modalities and other novel antivirals to suppress viral transmission and infection by inhibiting cellular pathways essential for viral infection.  The development of broad-spectrum antiviral drugs can provide an additional level of defense while specific antivirals are being developed. This approach has shown some indication of success against SARS-CoV-2 and may be appropriate to be implemented for future emerging viruses. This Special Issue, “Emerging Viruses and Antiviral Drugs”, focuses on various antiviral approaches to manage emerging and re-emerging viruses and will include antiviral drug discovery, discovery of the mechanism of actions, new targets, and upcoming and established technologies used for discovery and development of antiviral drugs.

Dr. Veronica Soloveva
Dr. Miguel A. Martín-Acebes
Dr. Sina Bavari
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • emerging viruses
  • antiviral therapies
  • antiviral drugs
  • drug discovery and development
  • mechanism of action

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 8434 KiB  
Article
High-Throughput Screening Assay for Convalescent Sera in COVID-19: Efficacy, Donor Selection, and Variant Neutralization
by Krishna P. Kota, Ilya Trakht, Gavreel Kalantarov, David Ordonez, Jiayi Wei, Stephanie Trefry, Evia Bavari, Jenny Richardson, Rouzbeh Zamani, Christy Raney, Farooq Nasar, Bruce Daugherty, Seth Lederman and Sina Bavari
Microorganisms 2024, 12(8), 1503; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12081503 - 23 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1110
Abstract
Convalescent sera, rich in pathogen-specific antibodies, offers passive immunity to patients with infectious diseases. Screening assays using convalescent sera are crucial for evaluating therapeutic efficacy, selecting suitable serum donors, and standardizing assays. They measure antibody levels, neutralizing potential, and specificity against viruses like [...] Read more.
Convalescent sera, rich in pathogen-specific antibodies, offers passive immunity to patients with infectious diseases. Screening assays using convalescent sera are crucial for evaluating therapeutic efficacy, selecting suitable serum donors, and standardizing assays. They measure antibody levels, neutralizing potential, and specificity against viruses like SARS-CoV-2, ensuring therapeutic serum contains potent antibodies. Standardized procedures enable reliable results and wider adoption of serum therapy for COVID-19. We have developed a high-content image-based assay for screening convalescent sera against SARS-CoV-2 variants. Using various cell lines, we identified optimal candidates, employed immunofluorescence to visualize infected cells, and assessed neutralizing antibody efficacy. Screening convalescent sera for therapeutic potential identified neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2 variants. Dose–response analysis showed variable neutralizing activity, with some sera exhibiting broad neutralization. Additionally, we explored the synergy between neutralizing sera and β-d-N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC), an initial metabolite of molnupiravir. These assays enhance serum therapy’s benefits for COVID-19 treatment and aid in understanding neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2 variants, addressing viral challenges. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Viruses and Antiviral Drugs, 2nd Edition)
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15 pages, 1290 KiB  
Article
Brilacidin as a Broad-Spectrum Inhibitor of Enveloped, Acutely Infectious Viruses
by Carol A. Anderson, Michael D. Barrera, Niloufar A. Boghdeh, Miata Smith, Farhang Alem and Aarthi Narayanan
Microorganisms 2024, 12(1), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12010054 - 28 Dec 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2060
Abstract
Alphaviruses, belonging to the Togaviridae family, and bunyaviruses, belonging to the Paramyxoviridae family, are globally distributed and lack FDA-approved vaccines and therapeutics. The alphaviruses Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) and eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) are known to cause severe encephalitis, whereas Sindbis [...] Read more.
Alphaviruses, belonging to the Togaviridae family, and bunyaviruses, belonging to the Paramyxoviridae family, are globally distributed and lack FDA-approved vaccines and therapeutics. The alphaviruses Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) and eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) are known to cause severe encephalitis, whereas Sindbis virus (SINV) causes arthralgia potentially persisting for years after initial infection. The bunyavirus Rift Valley Fever virus (RVFV) can lead to blindness, liver failure, and hemorrhagic fever. Brilacidin, a small molecule that was designed de novo based on naturally occurring host defensins, was investigated for its antiviral activity against these viruses in human small airway epithelial cells (HSAECs) and African green monkey kidney cells (Veros). This testing was further expanded into a non-enveloped Echovirus, a Picornavirus, to further demonstrate brilacidin’s effect on early steps of the viral infectious cycle that leads to inhibition of viral load. Brilacidin demonstrated antiviral activity against alphaviruses VEEV TC-83, VEEV TrD, SINV, EEEV, and bunyavirus RVFV. The inhibitory potential of brilacidin against the viruses tested in this study was dependent on the dosing strategy which necessitated compound addition pre- and post-infection, with addition only at the post-infection stage not eliciting a robust inhibitory response. The inhibitory activity of brilacidin was only modest in the context of the non-enveloped Picornavirus Echovirus, suggesting brilacidin may be less potent against non-enveloped viruses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Viruses and Antiviral Drugs, 2nd Edition)
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Review

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16 pages, 984 KiB  
Review
Extrahepatic Cancer Risk in Patients with Hepatitis C Virus Infection Treated with Direct-Acting Antivirals
by Joji Tani, Tsutomu Masaki, Kyoko Oura, Tomoko Tadokoro, Asahiro Morishita and Hideki Kobara
Microorganisms 2024, 12(9), 1926; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12091926 - 22 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1522
Abstract
Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is associated with an increased risk of extrahepatic cancers, particularly non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The introduction of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) has revolutionized HCV therapy, resulting in high cure rates. However, concerns have been raised about potential effects on cancer [...] Read more.
Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is associated with an increased risk of extrahepatic cancers, particularly non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The introduction of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) has revolutionized HCV therapy, resulting in high cure rates. However, concerns have been raised about potential effects on cancer risk. This review summarizes the current evidence on extrahepatic cancer risk in HCV-infected patients treated with DAAs. We examined epidemiologic data on HCV-associated extrahepatic cancers and explored potential mechanisms linking HCV to carcinogenesis outside the liver. Studies evaluating cancer outcomes after DAA therapy were critically reviewed while considering methodological challenges. While some studies suggested a reduced risk of extrahepatic cancers after DAA therapy, others showed no significant change. Limitations included short follow-up periods and confounding variables. Immunological changes following rapid HCV clearance may have complex effects on cancer risk. Long-term prospective studies and mechanistic investigations are needed to fully elucidate the relationship between DAA therapy and extrahepatic cancer risk in HCV patients. Clinicians should remain vigilant for extrahepatic malignancies in this population. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Viruses and Antiviral Drugs, 2nd Edition)
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