Host: The Japanese Pharmacological Society
Name : The 96th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Pharmacological Society
Number : 96
Location : [in Japanese]
Date : November 30, 2022 - December 03, 2022
During the past half century, more than 25 viral diseases including Ebola virus disease, SFTS and AIDS, appeared in human population as novel infectious diseases. Current pandemic of COVID-19 reminded us of the risk of emerging viral diseases again. In addition to emerging viral diseases, many other viral diseases including dengue, chikungunya, monkeypox and influenza, are still serious public health concerns in the world. One of major strategies to overcome these viral diseases is to develop the antiviral drugs. Several effective antiviral drugs have been developed for some viral diseases. However, there is no approved effective antivirals for most viral diseases. To improve this situation and also prepare for the emerging viral diseases which may appear in future, the novel antiviral drugs with a wide-antiviral spectrum are required.We recently observed that Mitochonic acid-5 (MA-5) significantly suppress the growth of SARS-CoV-2 in Calu-3 cells. MA-5 is known to facilitates ATP production in mitochondria and reduces ROS independent of electron transfer complex (ETC) by facilitating ATP synthase oligomerization and supercomplex formation with mitofilin. In some viral diseases including COVID-19, it has been reported that the dysfunction of mitochondria is involved in severe disease progression. The improvement of the mitochondrial function damaged by virus infection may be important for the therapeutics of viral diseases.We are now analysing the antiviral mechanism of MA-5 and also investigating the possibilities of MA-5 and its derivatives as a wide-spectrum antiviral.
