NCVTC to develop host-directed antivirals for COVID-19 disease

The Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) has approved support for a study by the National Centre for Veterinary Type Cultures (NCVTC), ICAR-NRC from Hisar in Haryana, which will screen their library of 94 small molecule chemical inhibitors for antivirals against coronaviruses.

The small molecule chemical inhibitors are known to inhibit cellular kinases, phosphatases, and epigenetic regulators like histone methyltransferase, histone deacetylase, and DNA methyltransferase.

The researchers are exploring alternative strategies to target such cellular proteins, protein-protein (virus-host) interaction, or epigenetic regulators called host-directed antiviral therapy.

The host-directed antivirals will have fewer tendencies in inducing drug resistance because it is not possible for the virus to easily change missing cellular functions by mutations.

Also, host-directed antiviral agents will exert broad-spectrum antiviral effects because the requirement of host factors by viruses is usually conserved across the members of a particular virus family or sometimes even across the members of different virus families.

The antiviral weapon will target cellular proteins, protein-protein (virus-host) interaction, or epigenetic regulators for COVID-19.