
Scientists Discover First ‘Virological Penicillin’ - slatercity
http://www.sci-news.com/medicine/science-virological-penicillin-honeysuckle-02206.html
======
api
The combinatorial space of organic molecules, nucleic acids, peptides,
proteins, etc. is effectively infinite, and there are trillions of species on
Earth making a vast array of such things. We haven't scratched the surface of
what's possible either in natural compounds or synthetic ones.

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dnautics
Biochemist here; not 100% certain how a micro-RNA survives the tea extraction
process. If the claim is that honeysuckle tea has an antiviral activity, there
are probably more active ingredients besides these.

~~~
twic
I also found the survival in the tea surprising. But it is reported to be the
case:

[http://www.nature.com/cr/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/cr201413...](http://www.nature.com/cr/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/cr2014130a.html)

"Here, we report that MIR2911, a honeysuckle (HS)-encoded atypical microRNA,
directly targets IAVs with a broad spectrum. MIR2911 is highly stable in HS
decoction, and continuous drinking or gavage feeding of HS decoction leads to
a significant elevation of the MIR2911 level in mouse peripheral blood and
lung."

The paper does compare honeysuckle tea and synthetic microRNA, and they seem
to be of roughly equal potency. The authors also tried the tea with a specific
inhibitor of the microRNA, and whilst that does look it has some effect
against the virus, it's very small. Sadly, the data around the question of
whether the microRNA is the only active ingredient in the tea is not as strong
as the data establishing that either of them are active.

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pinkyand
Another sensational title. We have many "virological penicilins". We call them
anti-retrovirals. We even got some for influenza(Oseltamivir ). The only
difference is that this is "natural" ,which appears to matter to some people.

But it's a good discovery, another drug is always useful.

~~~
geographomics
Sorry to nitpick, but just a minor correction - in general the class of drugs
are antivirals, of which antiretrovirals are a subcategory for dealing with
retroviruses, most notably HIV.

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acd
Regarding the fight against Ebola this Liberian doctor is using antivirual
medicine Lamivudine which is also used to treat hepatitis B and HIV, on Ebola
patients. I hope we can fund some shipments of that if it works. For example
Doctors without borders or crowdfunding via Dogecoin. "Of the 15 patients he
treated with lamivudine, he says, 13 survived."

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/10/355164328/a...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/10/355164328/a-liberian-
doctor-comes-up-with-his-own-ebola-regimen)

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gus_massa
One important difference is that penicillin is useful against a wide range of
bacteria. I'm not sure, but the article says that this new drug is useful only
against influenza.

There are many antiviral, but they are artificial and they are targeted
against certain families of virus (for example, acyclovir is only useful
against herpes and similar virus
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aciclovir](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aciclovir)
).

This is the first natural antiviral, but it's not a wide range antiviral.

------
ars
I guess I should stop ripping honeysuckle out of my garden then.

That stuff can kill an entire garden in one year though.

