This technology provides a pharmaceutical composition for antiviral use against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and a food composition for improving infection, containing a compound selected from 3-methylcatechol, 4-methylcatechol, 3-methoxycatechol, or 4-ethylcatechol, or their salts, as an active ingredient. These compounds inhibit viral proliferation and replication while preventing the reactivation of the virus in latently infected cells.
EBV is an oncogenic gammaherpesvirus carried by over 90% of the population. Once infected, it persists for life, alternating between latency and reactivation, and is linked to malignancies such as Burkitt lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, gastric cancer, and nasopharyngeal carcinoma, as well as infectious mononucleosis. Existing anti-herpes drugs like acyclovir or foscarnet target viral DNA polymerase and are effective against alphaherpesviruses, but have limited efficacy against the primary infection or reactivation of gammaherpesviruses, often leaving patients reliant on symptomatic steroid treatment.
This technology utilizes non-cytotoxic, low-molecular-weight catechol derivatives at concentrations of 1–100μM to block not only active-phase viruses but also the reactivation stage of latent infections, which existing drugs cannot address. It includes methods for inhibiting reactivation by treating EBV-latently infected cells with these compounds in vitro. Applications include adjuvant therapy for EBV-associated gastric and nasopharyngeal cancers, prophylactic drugs for post-transplant B-cell lymphoma, and food products for mononucleosis with chronic fatigue, offering a new strategy to break the cycle of viral reactivation from latent reservoirs.
This invention was developed with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT for the regulation of the infection life cycle of oncogenic gammaherpesviruses via NAD+-dependent signaling systems.
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