3.6 Cell release of the virus
Prevention of the release of the viruses from infected cells as the last
step of the viral cycle, is an attractive strategy to limit the spread
of the virus especially in pandemics. Drugs like zanamivir, oseltamivir,
laninamivir octanoate and peramivir inhibit this step by targeting viral
neuraminidase to block the release of Influenza virus (De Clercq and Li,
2016). Tetherin (bone marrow stromal cell antigen 2—BST-2, CD317) was
discovered as the factor responsible for the defect in virion release of
HIV-1 mutants lacking the accessory gene vpu (Van Damme et al., 2008).
One of the coronavirus virulence factors is ORF7a that inhibits the bone
marrow matrix antigen 2 (BST-2) (Taylor et al., 2015) related to its
escape from the innate immune system by host mRNA degradation and
interferon production inhibition. Bone marrow matrix antigen 2 (BST-2),
also known as tetherin or CD 317, is a host protein constitutively
expressed in mature B cells, plasma cells and plasmacytoid dendritic
cells, that can inhibit the release of newly-assembled coronavirus from
host cells. The evidence suggests that ORF7a may be a potential target
for antiviral drug discovery of 2019-nCoV.