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.