Science

Nicholas J. Barrows, Rafael K. Campos, Steven T. Powell, K. Reddisiva Prasanth, Geraldine Schott-Lerner, Ruben Soto-Acosta, Gaddiel Galarza-Munoz, Erica L. McGrath, Rheanna Urrabaz-Garza, Junling Gao, Ping Wu, Ramkumar Menon, George Saade, Ildefonso Fernandez-Salas, Shannan L. Rossi, Nikos Vasilakis, Andrew Routh, Shelton S. Bradrick, and Mariano A. Garcia-Blanco

Currently there are no approved vaccines or specific
therapies to prevent or treat Zika virus (ZIKV) infection.
We interrogated a library of FDA-approved
drugs for their ability to block infection of human
HuH-7 cells by a newly isolated ZIKV strain (ZIKV
MEX_I_7). More than 20 out of 774 tested compounds
decreased ZIKV infection in our in vitro
screening assay. Selected compounds were further
validated for inhibition of ZIKV infection in human
cervical, placental, and neural stem cell lines, as
well as primary human amnion cells. Established
anti-flaviviral drugs (e.g., bortezomib and mycophenolic
acid) and others that had no previously known
antiviral activity (e.g., daptomycin) were identified
as inhibitors of ZIKV infection. Several drugs reduced
ZIKV infection across multiple cell types. This study
identifies drugs that could be tested in clinical
studies of ZIKV infection and provides a resource of
small molecules to study ZIKV pathogenesis.