Nanotherapeutics for Viral Diseases of Animals

Prevention is no doubt the best strategy to combat viral diseases as the options of antiviral therapeutics are limited. The shortage is even more acute in case of viral diseases of animals. Considering the diversity of livestock species and their viral disease, only a few among them are having vaccines developed against them. So, a mere supportive therapy or limiting secondary infections often remain as the only therapeutic option to the clinician. In addition, limitations of conventional antiviral drugs such as drug resistance, toxicity effect, short half-life, patient noncompliance, and issue of bioavailability pose daunting task to treat viral diseases effectively. At this juncture, nanotechnology interventions have paved the way to surmount certain limitations of conventional antiviral therapeutics. The predominant role of nanoparticles in antiviral therapy is to enhance the pharmacokinetic activity of the existing antiviral drugs. Nanoencapsulation of antiviral drugs potentiates the therapeutics by slow and sustained release as well as protecting them from degradation, thus prolonging the half-life. Nanointervention can improve the solubility and bioavailability of certain drugs which cannot be administered in free form. The smaller size and favorable attributes of nanoparticles often help them to cross certain biological barriers that an antiviral drug cannot penetrate. Moreover, intelligent surface functionalization of nanoparticles can promote molecular interaction at cellular and subcellular levels. The predominant mechanisms for inhibiting viral infection include but not limited to suppressing the replication of viral genome, inhibiting the attachment of virus particles to the target cells, inhibiting the functions of viral proteins, and deactivating viruses. The potential of nanomedicine has progressively getting reflected as newer nanoformulations are now hitting the market regularly. So, it is expected that the economically important and zoonotic viral diseases of animals will certainly gain more attention in upcoming days in the context of nanotechnology boom.