title: Respiratory Syncytial Virus: pathology, therapeutic drugs and prophylaxis.
abstract: Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus (hRSV) is the leading cause of lower respiratory tract diseases, affecting particularly newborns and young children. This virus is able to modulate the immune response, generating a pro-inflammatory environment in the airways that causes obstruction and pulmonary alterations in the infected host. To date, no vaccines are available for human use and the first vaccine that reached clinical trials produced an enhanced hRSV-associated pathology 50 years ago, resulting in the death of two children. Currently, only two therapeutic approaches have been used to treat hRSV infection in high risk children: 1. Palivizumab, a humanized antibody against the F glycoprotein that reduces to half the number of hospitalized cases and 2. Ribavirin, which fails to have a significant therapeutic effect. A major caveat for these approaches is their high economical cost, which highlights the need of new and affordable therapeutic or prophylactic tools to treat or prevents hRSV infection. Accordingly, several efforts are in progress to understand the hRSV-associated pathology and to characterize the immune response elicited by this virus. Currently, preclinical and clinical trials are being conducted to evaluate safety and efficacy of several drugs and vaccines, which have shown promising results. In this article, we discuss the most important advances in the development of drugs and vaccines, which could eventually lead to better strategies to treat or prevent the detrimental inflammation triggered by hRSV infection.
authors.affiliation: Millennium Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, Departamento de Genética Molecular y Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Chile; INSERM U1064, Nantes, France.
authors.forename: Roberto S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.affiliation: INSERM U1064, Nantes, France.
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Guisle-Marsollier
authors.affiliation: Millennium Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, Departamento de Genética Molecular y Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Chile.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bohmwald
authors.affiliation: Millennium Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, Departamento de Genética Molecular y Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Chile; INSERM U1064, Nantes, France.
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Bueno
authors.affiliation: Millennium Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, Departamento de Genética Molecular y Microbiología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Chile; Departamento de Reumatología, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile; INSERM U1064, Nantes, France. Electronic address: akalergis@bio.puc.cl.
authors.forename: Alexis M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Kalergis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000998:Antiviral Agents / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D018357:Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D022261:Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccines / Q000276:immunology; D018113:Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Human / Q000502:physiology*; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000998:Antiviral Agents; D022261:Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccines; D014764:Viral Proteins
keywords: Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus; Immunity; Infection; Prophylaxis; Therapeutics; Vaccine