A scientific team led in part by one of the pioneers at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) has recently identified new natural molecules whose antiviral properties could one day make them valuable allies in the fight against such formidable viruses as Ebola and SARS-CoV-2.
Michel Chrétien and his colleague Majambu Mbikay, also of the IRCM, wanted to know why the antiviral activity of a previously known molecule seemed to vary from one instance to another.
“It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Chrétien, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday and discussed his work exclusively with La Presse Canadienne.
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This discovery stems from years of research on isoquercetin, a flavonoid found in many plants that exhibited significant antiviral activity in the laboratory. However, some isoquercetin extracts appeared to be significantly more effective than others.
In collaboration with Canadian and American experts, the Montreal team determined that this antiviral activity did not come from the isoquercetin itself, but rather from two previously unknown triterpenoid compounds, present at only 0.4 per cent in the analyzed extract.
These new molecules, dubbed dicitriosides, have proven to be up to 25 times more effective than the original extract against the Ebola virus and SARS-CoV-2 under experimental conditions.
The challenge now will be to produce sufficient quantities of these molecules to test them on animals, said Chrétien.
And if a new antiviral drug ever emerges from this discovery, it won’t be a bad thing, he emphasized, since the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly shown us how quickly modern medicine can run out of options when faced with a new enemy that appears out of nowhere.
“If it were an antibiotic, we could say, ‘Wait, there are several new ones on the market,’” Chrétien concluded. “But these are viruses; it’s dangerous, it’s right in our faces, and there are no effective drugs. That’s why this news is biologically more interesting and important.”
The findings of this study were published in the Journal of National Products.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
