Repurposing of Antazoline Hydrochloride as an Inhibitor of Hepatitis B Virus DNA Secretion.

ABSTRACT

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) belongs to Hepadnaviridae family and mainly infects hepatocytes, which can cause acute or chronic hepatitis. Currently, two types of antiviral drugs are approved for chronic infection clinically interferons and nucleos(t)ide analogues. However, the clinical cure for chronic infection is still rare, and it is a huge challenge for all researchers to develop high-efficiency, safe, non-tolerant, and low-toxicity anti-HBV drugs. Antazoline hydrochloride is a first-generation antihistamine with anticholinergic properties, and it is commonly used to relieve nasal congestion and in eye drops. Recently, an in vitro high-throughput evaluation system was constructed to screen nearly 800 compounds from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved Drug Library. We found that arbidol hydrochloride and antazoline hydrochloride can effectively reduce HBV DNA in the extracellular supernatant in a dose-dependent manner, with EC50 of 4.321 µmol/L and 2.910 µmol/L in HepAD38 cells, respectively. Moreover, the antiviral effects and potential mechanism of action of antazoline hydrochloride were studied in different HBV replication systems. The results indicate that antazoline hydrochloride also has a significant inhibitory effect on HBV DNA in the extracellular supernatant of Huh7 cells, with an EC50 of 2.349 µmol/L. These findings provide new ideas for screening and research related to HBV agents.