Abstract

Nontoxic drugs that irreversibly inhibit viruses (virucidal) are postulated to be ideal on this pandemic era against respiratory viral spreading. Unfortunately, all virucidal molecules described to date are cytotoxic. We recently developed nontoxic, broad-spectrum virucidal gold nanoparticles, less than 10 nm sized modified with sulfonic acids (mesilate) to mimic heparan sulfates and to provide the key nontoxic virucidal action. The anti-influenza effects of Camostat, a serine protease inhibitor can introduce the gold nanoparticles to the influenza virus with ionic bonding. In this study, we have examined the ability of a novel sulfonated colloid gold to inhibit the influenza virus A/PR/8/34 (H1N1; PR8) strain of mice infection in vivo. Our data show that intranasal treatment of mice with A/PR/8/34 (H1N1;PR8) fully protected the animals from a lethal infection and significantly decreased the viral titers in the lungs of the infected animals. Thus, camostat-colloid gold is a promising candidate for the development of antiviral drugs for preventing and treating the influenza infection.

Keywords: Camostat-collid gold; Osteltamivir; Influenza; Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycan (HSPG); ACE2 receptor