Synopsis: As the leading cause of death worldwide, viruses significantly affect global health. Despite the rapid progress in human healthcare, there are few viricidal and antiviral therapies that are efficient enough. The rapid emergence of resistance, and high costs, of synthetic antiviral drugs, raise the need to identify novel, effective, and safe alternatives against viral diseases.
Nature has been of the most exceptional help and source of inspiration for developing novel multi-target antiviral compounds, affecting several steps of the viral life cycle and host proteins. For that matter and due to safety and efficacy limitations, as well as high resistance rate of conventional therapies, hundreds of natural molecules are preferred over the synthetic drugs.
The potential of anthocyanin to show its antiviral effects through binding to host cells, inhibiting viral life cycle, or stimulating host immunity, strengthens the idea that anthocyanin would be an essential brick and a potential therapeutic agent to find novel antiviral lead-compounds.
Altogether, blackcurrant extract displayed auspicious anti-InfV effects through different mechanisms.
Frontiers in Pharmacology DOI:10.3389/fphar.2019.01207
