Viruses of protozoan parasites and viral therapy: Is the time now right?
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REVIEW
Viruses of protozoan parasites and viral therapy: Is the time now right? Paul Barrow1*, Jean Claude Dujardin2, Nicolas Fasel3, Alex D. Greenwood4,5,6, Klaus Osterrieder6,10, George Lomonossoff7, Pier Luigi Fiori8, Robert Atterbury1, Matteo Rossi3 and Marco Lalle9*
Abstract Infections caused by protozoan parasites burden the world with huge costs in terms of human and animal health. Most parasitic diseases caused by protozoans are neglected, particularly those associated with poverty and tropical countries, but the paucity of drug treatments and vaccines combined with increasing problems of drug resistance are becoming major concerns for their control and eradication. In this climate, the discovery/repurposing of new drugs and increasing effort in vaccine development should be supplemented with an exploration of new alternative/synergic treatment strategies. Viruses, either native or engineered, have been employed successfully as highly effective and selective therapeutic approaches to treat cancer (oncolytic viruses) and antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases (phage therapy). Increasing evidence is accumulating that many protozoan, but also helminth, parasites harbour a range of different classes of viruses that are mostly absent from humans. Although some of these viruses appear to have no effect on their parasite hosts, others either have a clear direct negative impact on the parasite or may, in fact, contribute to the virulence of parasites for humans. This review will focus mainly on the viruses identified in protozoan parasites that are of medical importance. Inspired and informed by the experience gained from the application of oncolytic virus- and phage-therapy, rationally-driven strategies to employ these viruses successfully against parasitic diseases will be presented and discussed in the light of the current knowledge of the virus biology and the complex interplay between the viruses, the parasite hosts and the human host. We also highlight knowledge gaps that should be addressed to advance the potential of virotherapy against parasitic diseases. Keywords: Parasite, Virus, dsRNA, Therapy, Virus-like particles Background According to CDC, “a parasite is an organism that lives on or in a host organism and gets its food from or at the expense of its host” (https://www.cdc.gov/paras ites/about.html), and for the purposes of this review the term parasite will exclusively refer to eukaryotic organisms. Protozoa, together with helminths, represent the *Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 1 School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE12 5RD, UK 9 Unit of Foodborne and Neglected Parasitic Diseases, European Union Reference Laboratory for Parasites, Department of Infectious Diseases, Istituto Superiore Di Sanità, viale Regina Elena 299, 00186 Rome, Italy Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
main cause of parasitic disease in humans in addition to lives
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