Antiviral Agents, DNA

Abstract

The seven families of DNA viruses that cause disease in humans show tremendous variety in the relationships that they have with their hosts. This variety is reflected both in the disease states that they cause and the approaches used to develop antiviral drugs to treat them. The most successful antiviral tools have been nucleoside analogs, particularly those targeting the polymerases of herpesviruses and hepatitis virus B. The list of nucleoside analog drugs continues to expand as compounds are developed with greater potency or range, better bioavailability, or improved side effect profiles. Other viral targets have started to receive more attention, including helicases, proteases, and enzymes required for virion assembly. These targets should gain in importance as resistance to currently available drugs becomes more prevalent. In addition, expanding the list of viable viral targets is particularly important with regard to members of the parvovirus, papillomavirus, and polyomavirus families, which do not encode a viral polymerase. Some effective antiviral treatments have not targeted the virus but rather the immune response to the viral infection. An optimal immune response is critical to elimination of some classes of viruses, and exploiting this aspect of the host‐virus interaction provides another approach to antiviral drug development.