Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama 641-8509, Japan.
Curr Med Chem. 2009;16(20):2485-97. doi: 10.2174/092986709788682065.
Virus infection is one of the major threats to human health and can be avoided by minimizing exposure to infectious viruses. Viral clearance of pharmaceutical products and sanitization of skin and mucosal surfaces would reduce such exposures. Even with such care, virus infection does occur, requiring effective treatments by antiviral or virucidal agents. Natural products, in particular ingredients of foods and drinks we normally consume or metabolites present in human body at low concentrations, would have advantage over synthetic drugs as antiviral agents for safety concerns. For this reason, we have been studying natural products for their effects on virus inactivation and growth. Such natural products, which we have been focusing, include gallate derivatives, caffeine present in coffee, caffeic acid present in coffee and various fruits, ascorbic and dehydroascorbic acids and a cell metabolite, arginine. Here we will review our work on antiviral and virucidal activities of these compounds and the mechanism of their antiviral and virucidal effects.
病毒感染是人类健康的主要威胁之一，可以通过尽量减少接触传染性病毒来避免。清除药物产品中的病毒和对皮肤及黏膜表面进行消毒可以减少此类暴露。即使采取了这些预防措施，病毒感染仍会发生，这就需要使用抗病毒或杀病毒药物进行有效治疗。天然产物，特别是我们通常食用的食物和饮料的成分或在人体中以低浓度存在的代谢物，作为抗病毒药物，由于安全性方面的考虑，比合成药物具有优势。基于此原因，我们一直在研究天然产物对病毒失活和生长的影响。我们一直在关注的这类天然产物包括没食子酸衍生物、咖啡中含有的咖啡因、咖啡和各种水果中含有的咖啡酸、抗坏血酸和脱氢抗坏血酸以及细胞代谢物精氨酸。在这里，我们将回顾我们在这些化合物的抗病毒和杀病毒活性及其抗病毒和杀病毒作用机制方面的工作。
