WIKIMEDIA, BENJAH-BMM27 Chloroquine, a 4-aminoquinoline, is a weak base with anti-inflammatory proprieties already used to prevent and treat malaria. The drug has protective effects against dengue infection in monkeys and inhibits replication of the virus in infected Vero cells. According to researchers in Brazil, chloroquine appears to also protect against Zika virus infection in various cell types in vitro. The team published its results last week (May 2) in a bioRxiv preprint.
Amilcar Tanuri at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and colleagues tested the effects of chloroquine in different Zika virus–infected cell types, observing each culture for five days. Flow cytometry and immunofluorescence staining revealed that chloroquine at 25 and 50 μM reduced the number of Zika-infected Vero cells by 65 percent and 95 percent, respectively. When tested in human brain microvascular endothelial cells (hBMEC), which are often used to model the blood-brain barrier, chloroquine protected 80 percent of the cells examined from Zika-induced death, the researchers reported.
“Chloroquine . . . is not an antiviral drug as it acts on the cell and not on the virus,” Tanuri told The Scientist.
Zika is known to target neurospheres and brain organoids; viral infection is associated ...
