International Journal of Molecular Sciences

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Dear Colleagues,

In the last ten years, globalization, global warming, and population aging have contributed to the spread of emerging or re-emerging viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, West Nile, Dengue, Zika, Ebola and, recently, monkeypox virus. The number of reported cases is impressive, and considering that many viral infections occur asymptomatically it is conceivable that numbers will increase significantly in the coming years.

With the risk of new epidemics just around the corner, there is an urgent need to find new antivirals that are able to counter future epidemics. Antivirals can be designed using computational methods, rational drug design, or high-throughput screening, or by finding novel uses for already-developed compounds (drug repurposing).

This Special Issue of IJMS will focus on advances in the field of antiviral therapy, including the development of novel antivirals, drug-repurposing approaches, mechanism of action elucidation, sustainable procedures to scale up the synthesis of existing antivirals, and optimization of ADME and PK properties. We welcome the submission of papers focusing on the development of antivirals using cutting-edge technologies such as proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) and ribonuclease-targeting chimeras (RIBOTACs).

Dr. Elena Dreassi
Guest Editor

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. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. 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

antivirals
mechanism of action
PROTACs
RIBOTACs
ADME
PK
medicinal chemistry
viruses

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 2981 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Butyrate Protects against SARS-CoV-2-Induced Tissue Damage in Golden Hamsters

by Huan Yu, Lunzhi Yuan, Zhigang Yan, Ming Zhou, Jianghui Ye, Kun Wu, Wenjia Chen, Rirong Chen, Ningshao Xia, Yi Guan and Huachen Zhu

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(18), 14191; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms241814191 - 16 Sep 2023

Viewed by 1221

Abstract

Butyrate, produced by gut microbe during dietary fiber fermentation, has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects on chronic inflammation diseases, yet it remains to be explored whether butyrate has protective effects against viral infections. Here, we demonstrated that butyrate alleviated tissue injury in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-infected golden hamsters supplemented with butyrate before and during the infection. Butyrate-treated hamsters showed augmentation of type I interferon (IFN) response and activation of endothelial cells without exaggerated inflammation. In addition, butyrate regulated redox homeostasis by enhancing the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) to inhibit excessive apoptotic cell death. Therefore, butyrate exhibited effective prevention against SARS-CoV-2 by upregulating antiviral immune responses and promoting cell survival. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights for Medicinal Chemical Approaches to Fighting Viruses)

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Review

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29 pages, 1449 KiB

Open AccessReview

Progress towards Adjuvant Development: Focus on Antiviral Therapy

by Annalaura Brai, Federica Poggialini, Claudia Pasqualini, Claudia Immacolata Trivisani, Chiara Vagaggini and Elena Dreassi

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(11), 9225; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24119225 - 25 May 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2135

Abstract

In recent decades, vaccines have been extraordinary resources to prevent pathogen diffusion and cancer. Even if they can be formed by a single antigen, the addition of one or more adjuvants represents the key to enhance the response of the immune signal to the antigen, thus accelerating and increasing the duration and the potency of the protective effect. Their use is of particular importance for vulnerable populations, such as the elderly or immunocompromised people. Despite their importance, only in the last forty years has the search for novel adjuvants increased, with the discovery of novel classes of immune potentiators and immunomodulators. Due to the complexity of the cascades involved in immune signal activation, their mechanism of action remains poorly understood, even if significant discovery has been recently made thanks to recombinant technology and metabolomics. This review focuses on the classes of adjuvants under research, recent mechanism of action studies, as well as nanodelivery systems and novel classes of adjuvants that can be chemically manipulated to create novel small molecule adjuvants. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights for Medicinal Chemical Approaches to Fighting Viruses)

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