Antiviral Agents to Influenza Virus
A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "Viral Immunology, Vaccines, and Antivirals".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 12726
Special Issue Editors
Interests: influenza virus infection; acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS); inhibitor; antiviral; immunomodulatory; drug-resistance; target; host factor; cytokine; chemokine; cytokine storm; RNA-dependent RNA polymerase; hemagglutinin; neuraminidase; M2 ion channel; mechanism of action
Interests: antiviral activity; screening; natural resources; bacterial extracts; fungal extracts; antimicrobial peptides; toxins
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: influenza; molecular virology; cell culture; PCR; virus replication
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues
Influenza viruses are significant human respiratory viral pathogens that cause seasonal, endemic infections and periodic, unpredictable pandemics. For example, it was estimated that the 1918 pandemic killed almost 1% (0.95%) of the world population. Influenza viruses infect the nose, throat, and sometimes the lungs, causing mild to severe illness and death. People 65 years and older, or with certain chronic medical conditions, pregnant women, and children younger than five years are at high risks of developing serious flu-related complications.
Despite the availability of vaccines and antiviral drugs, influenza virus infections impact morbidity and mortality and remain one of the most adverse factors of infectious disease.
Current anti-flu drugs in clinical use, including four neuraminidase inhibitors and one RNA polymerase inhibitor, can reduce viral loads and alleviate influenza symptoms if administrated early when symptoms first began to appear. However, antiviral drugs provide little benefit when administered more than two days after symptoms appear. In addition, drug resistance remains a significant challenge to the treatment of flu. Therefore, new anti-flu drugs targeting viral proteins, and having high drug-resistance barriers, or target host factors are urgently needed. In addition, immunomodulatory drugs that can reduce acute lung injury mediated by cytokine storm induced by influenza virus infections are most valuable for combinational therapies using antiviral drugs and immunomodulatory drugs developed explicitly for influenza.
The aims and scope of this Special Issue on “Antivirals to Influenza Virus Infections” include but are not limited to the following topics:
- Antivirals from natural products or synthetic molecules that can inhibit the replication of influenza viruses;
- Immunomodulatory agents from natural products or synthetic molecules that can inhibit innate immune responses to influenza virus infection or alleviate influenza caused lung injury;
- Efficacy studies and mechanism of action studies on new inhibitors with either antiviral activity or immunomodulatory activity against influenza virus infection;
- Identification of new antiviral targets that are virally encoded or host factors. The identification of immunomodulatory targets;
- Identification of cell signalling pathways that are essential for influenza virus replication or cytokine storm/acute respiratory distress syndrome;
- Drugs resistance study of FDA-approved drugs or newly developed drugs;
- Combination therapy using antiviral drugs or antiviral drugs with immunomodulatory drugs.
Prof. Dr. Xulin Chen
Dr. Kornelia Hardes
Dr. Volker Czudai-Matwich
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- influenza virus infection
- antiviral
- immunomodulatory agent
- virus replication
- mechanism of action
- innate immunity
- type-I interferons
- inflammatory cytokines
- cytokine storm
- acute respiratory distress syndrome
- pathogenesis
- cell signalling
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