The research group of the Department of Gastroenterology, University of Tokyo Hospital has built an efficient screening system for drugs that block the binding of the viral protein HBx, which is important for hepatitis B virus replication, to the host protein DDB1, and treats hepatitis B. Nitazoxanide was identified as a candidate drug.
Hepatitis B is a disease that affects more than 2 million people worldwide and kills about 5 people each year.With current medical treatment, it is difficult to completely eliminate the virus from the body and stop the production of viral RNA and viral protein, so once you start taking antiviral drugs, you have to continue taking them for the rest of your life. It causes various problems such as the burden on patients.
Therefore, the research group applied a special technique called complementary split luciferase assay to construct a screening system that can easily search for a binding inhibitor between HBx and DDB1.When 817 drugs already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were added and changes in luciferase activity were observed, it was found that a drug called nitazoxanide strongly suppressed luciferase activity.Further research revealed that nitazoxanide suppresses the production of viral RNA, which cannot be suppressed by the currently widely used preparations for the treatment of hepatitis B.
Based on the above results, nitazoxanide is expected to become a "new hepatitis B therapeutic agent" that realizes HBsAg negative, which is difficult to achieve with existing hepatitis B therapeutic agents.
Paper information:[Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology] Inhibition of HBV transcription from cccDNA with nitazoxanide by targeting the HBx–DDB1 interaction
