Agostinho, W. C. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2023

Prolonged survival of rabid mice after treatment with Poly-ICLC Hiltonol (R)

Despite its 100% lethality and approximately 59,000 human deaths a year, rabies is still in want of an effective treatment. A host of trials has been described aiming at impairing the life cycle of Lyssavirus rabies (RABV), the chief worldwide lyssavirus causing rabies, but with limited success. In this study, mice intranasally inoculated with the CVS strain of RABV were serially treated with 50{micro}g/day of the Poly ICLC Hiltonol(R) jn MEM showed significantly higher survival time and disease incubation period as compared to control mice that received MEM only. These very preliminary results indicate that Hiltonol(R) might be an effective drug against rabies that merits wider in vivo investigation.

pharmacology and toxicology↗

bioRxiv2019

Intracerebral transfection of anti-rabies virus antibodies is an effective therapy for rabies

Rabies is a zoonotic neurological disease with 100% lethality. Some of the rare human patients who survived after multiple drug treatment have inherited severe sequelae. The objective of this study was to investigate the action of the transfection of antibodies against rabies in the central nervous system of mice as target therapy for rabies.\n\nAuthor summaryThe present study showed that after 48 h of RABV inoculation, mice injected by the intracerebral route with anti-RABV F(ab)2 complexed with Bioporter(R) Protein Delivery Reagent (Genlantis) as a transfection agent, showing a morbidity/mortality rate of 30% with a minimum incubation period of seven days, while in the control group a significantly higher (p<0.0198) 90% morbidity/mortality was reached in thirteen days after a maximum 5-day incubation period, suggesting that the transfection of anti-RABV antibodies into the brain might prevent or delay RABV dissemination in an early stage of rabies infection. For the first time, a single compound was able to inhibit replication of the virus in the nervous system with high efficiency. This result can provide important results for the planning of protocols to prevent the fatal outcome of the disease in advanced stages. New studies focusing on the optimization of intracellular antibody delivery may be one of the main bases for more effective anti-rabies therapy.

molecular biology↗