School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE12 5RD, UK.
Molecular Parasitology Unit, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nationalestraat, 155, 2000, Antwerpen, Belgium.
Virol J. 2020 Sep 29;17(1):142. doi: 10.1186/s12985-020-01410-1.
Infections caused by protozoan parasites burden the world with huge costs in terms of human and animal health. Most parasitic diseases caused by protozoans are neglected, particularly those associated with poverty and tropical countries, but the paucity of drug treatments and vaccines combined with increasing problems of drug resistance are becoming major concerns for their control and eradication. In this climate, the discovery/repurposing of new drugs and increasing effort in vaccine development should be supplemented with an exploration of new alternative/synergic treatment strategies. Viruses, either native or engineered, have been employed successfully as highly effective and selective therapeutic approaches to treat cancer (oncolytic viruses) and antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases (phage therapy). Increasing evidence is accumulating that many protozoan, but also helminth, parasites harbour a range of different classes of viruses that are mostly absent from humans. Although some of these viruses appear to have no effect on their parasite hosts, others either have a clear direct negative impact on the parasite or may, in fact, contribute to the virulence of parasites for humans. This review will focus mainly on the viruses identified in protozoan parasites that are of medical importance. Inspired and informed by the experience gained from the application of oncolytic virus- and phage-therapy, rationally-driven strategies to employ these viruses successfully against parasitic diseases will be presented and discussed in the light of the current knowledge of the virus biology and the complex interplay between the viruses, the parasite hosts and the human host. We also highlight knowledge gaps that should be addressed to advance the potential of virotherapy against parasitic diseases.
原生动物寄生虫引起的感染给人类和动物的健康带来了巨大的负担，在经济上造成了巨大的损失。大多数由原生动物引起的寄生虫病都被忽视了，特别是那些与贫困和热带国家有关的疾病，但药物治疗和疫苗的缺乏，加上耐药性问题的日益严重，正成为控制和消灭这些疾病的主要关注点。在这种情况下，发现/重新利用新药物和加大疫苗开发力度的同时，还应该探索新的替代/协同治疗策略。病毒，无论是天然的还是工程化的，已经被成功地用作治疗癌症（溶瘤病毒）和抗生素耐药性细菌疾病（噬菌体治疗）的高效和选择性治疗方法。越来越多的证据表明，许多原生动物，甚至还有蠕虫寄生虫，都携带着一系列不同类别的病毒，而这些病毒在人类中大多不存在。虽然其中一些病毒对寄生虫宿主似乎没有影响，但其他病毒要么对寄生虫有明显的直接负面影响，要么实际上可能有助于寄生虫对人类的毒力。这篇综述将主要集中在具有医学重要性的原生动物寄生虫中鉴定出的病毒。受溶瘤病毒和噬菌体治疗应用经验的启发和指导，我们将根据目前对病毒生物学的认识以及病毒、寄生虫宿主和人类宿主之间的复杂相互作用，提出并讨论针对寄生虫病成功应用这些病毒的合理驱动策略。我们还强调了应该解决的知识差距，以推进抗病毒治疗寄生虫病的潜力。
