TY - JOUR
T1 - Ribavirin's antiviral mechanism of action
T2 - Lethal mutagenesis?
AU - Crotty, Shane
AU - Cameron, Craig
AU - Andino, Raul
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grant AI40085 to R.A. and National Institutes of Health grants CA75118 and AI45818 to C.E.C. S.C. was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute doctoral fellow.
PY - 2002
Y1 - 2002
N2 - Ribavirin, an antiviral drug discovered in 1972, is interesting and important for three reasons: (a) it exhibits antiviral activity against a broad range of RNA viruses; (b) it is currently used clinically to treat hepatitis C virus infections, respiratory syncytial virus infections, and Lassa fever virus infections; and (c) ribavirin's mechanism of action has remained unclear for many years. Here we recount the history of ribavirin and review recent reports regarding ribavirin's mechanism of action, including our studies demonstrating that ribavirin is an RNA virus mutagen and ribavirin's primary antiviral mechanism of action against a model RNA virus is via lethal mutagenesis of the RNA virus genomes. Implications for the development of improved versions of ribavirin and for the development of novel antiviral drugs are discussed.
AB - Ribavirin, an antiviral drug discovered in 1972, is interesting and important for three reasons: (a) it exhibits antiviral activity against a broad range of RNA viruses; (b) it is currently used clinically to treat hepatitis C virus infections, respiratory syncytial virus infections, and Lassa fever virus infections; and (c) ribavirin's mechanism of action has remained unclear for many years. Here we recount the history of ribavirin and review recent reports regarding ribavirin's mechanism of action, including our studies demonstrating that ribavirin is an RNA virus mutagen and ribavirin's primary antiviral mechanism of action against a model RNA virus is via lethal mutagenesis of the RNA virus genomes. Implications for the development of improved versions of ribavirin and for the development of novel antiviral drugs are discussed.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0036182633&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0036182633&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00109-001-0308-0
DO - 10.1007/s00109-001-0308-0
M3 - Review article
C2 - 11907645
AN - SCOPUS:0036182633
SN - 0946-2716
VL - 80
SP - 86
EP - 95
JO - Journal of Molecular Medicine
JF - Journal of Molecular Medicine
IS - 2
ER -
