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HCMV Antivirals and Strategies to Target the Latent Reservoir

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Perera, Marianne R.  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9175-0568
Wills, Mark R. 
Sinclair, John H. 

Abstract

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous human herpesvirus. In healthy people, primary infection is generally asymptomatic, and the virus can go on to establish lifelong latency in cells of the myeloid lineage. However, HCMV often causes severe disease in the immunosuppressed: transplant recipients and people living with AIDS, and also in the immunonaive foetus. At present, there are several antiviral drugs licensed to control HCMV disease. However, these are all faced with problems of poor bioavailability, toxicity and rapidly emerging viral resistance. Furthermore, none of them are capable of fully clearing the virus from the host, as they do not target latent infection. Consequently, reactivation from latency is a significant source of disease, and there remains an unmet need for treatments that also target latent infection. This review briefly summarises the most common HCMV antivirals used in clinic at present and discusses current research into targeting the latent HCMV reservoir.

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Keywords

human cytomegalovirus, latency, antiviral, latent reservoir, shock and kill, F49A-FTP, transplant

Journal Title

Viruses

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1999-4915

Volume Title

13

Publisher

MDPI
Sponsorship
Medical Research Council (MR/S00081X/1, RG86932)