Emetine inhibits Zika and Ebola virus infections through two molecular mechanisms: inhibiting viral replication and decreasing viral entry

• DOI: 10.1038/s41421-018-0034-1
• Publication Date: 2018-06-03T19:33:47Z
• Authors: Shu Yang; Miao Xu; Emily M Lee; Kirill Gorshkov; Sergey A. Shiryaev; Shihua He; Wei Sun; Yu-Shan Cheng; Xin Hu; Anil Mathew Thara...; Billy Lu; Antonella Pinto; Chen Farhy; Chun-Teng Huang; Zirui Zhang; Wenjun Zhu; Yuying Wu; Yi Zhou; Guang Song; Heng Zhu; Khalida Shamim; Carles Martínez-R...; Adolfo García-Sastre; Richard A. Preston; Dushyantha T. Jay...; Ruili Huang; Wenwei Huang; Menghang Xia; Anton Simeonov; Guoli Ming; Xiangguo Qiu; Alexey V. Terskikh; Hengli Tang; Hongjun Song; Wei Zheng
• Keywords: Emetine; Zika Virus; Vero cell

The re-emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV) and Ebola (EBOV) poses serious continued threats to the global public health. Effective therapeutics for these maladies is an unmet need. Here, we show that emetine, anti-protozoal agent, potently inhibits ZIKV EBOV infection with a low nanomolar half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) in vitro potent activity vivo. Two mechanisms action emetine are identified: inhibition NS5 polymerase disruption lysosomal function. Emetine also entry. Cephaeline, desmethyl analog which may be better tolerated patients than exhibits similar efficacy against both infections. Hence, cephaeline offer pharmaceutical therapies infection.