Ebola virus replication can be controlled by Antisense Phosphorodiamidate Morpholino Oligomers therapy.
Professor Sina Bavari and team from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have found that antisense genetic sequence of the Ebola virus could help protection and treatment of humans from wild strains of Ebola virus. This therapy is very important and still more has to be done as this Ebola virus offers a great threat of bioterrorism. The results of this research work are published in the Journal Public Library of Science Pathogens.
Ebola virus causes Viral Hemorrhagic Syndrome causing a very high increase of virus in blood leading to an ineffective immunological protection by the host against the virus leading necrosis. Morbidity and mortality is very high and varies according to the strain involved and no effective treatment has been found against the virus and interestingly virus has been isolated from the semen of infected person.Antisense drugs binds to the replication site of the virus and due to the mismatch pairing it does not lead to replication of virus causing the reduction of the virus. A Combination of three Antisense Phosphorodiamidate Morpholino Oligomers (PMOs) was first tested on laboratory mice followed by experiments on guinea pigs and rhesus monkeys and the researchers found that the Antisense PMOs effectively inhibits the growth of the virus and the researchers are planning to further expand their study on antisense PMOs against Ebola virus.
