Novel pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine nucleoside analog with broad-spectrum antiviral activity.

A novel nucleoside analog, 4(5H)-oxo-1-beta-D- ribofuranosylpyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine-3-thiocarboxamide (N10169), was evaluated in cell culture and in animals for antiviral activity against DNA and RNA viruses. The compound was highly active against strains of adeno-, vaccinia, influenza B, paramyxo-, picorna-, and reoviruses, with 50% inhibition of virus-induced cytopathology at 1 to 10 microM. Lesser or no antiviral effects were observed against herpes simplex, cytomegalo-, corona-, influenza A, vesicular stomatitis, and visna viruses. Drug potency against certain viruses was highly cell line dependent (N10169 was highly active in HeLa cells but was much less potent in Vero cells). This was correlated, in part, to differences in levels of adenosine kinase activity in these cell lines, since adenosine kinase appears to phosphorylate N10169 to its active form. N10169 was inhibitory to proliferating cells at antiviral concentrations, whereas stationary-phase monolayers tolerated higher concentrations (less than or equal to 100 microM). Exogenous uridine was able to reverse the virus-inhibitory effects of the compound, leading to the discovery that N10169 5'-monophosphate is a potent inhibitor of cellular orotidylate decarboxylase. N10169 was evaluated in mice that were infected intraperitoneally with banzi virus or inoculated intranasally with influenza B virus, and in hamsters that were infected intranasally with vaccinia virus. In each model, intraperitoneal injection of N10169 (100 to 300 mg/kg per day for 7 days) twice daily was ineffective, whereas intraperitoneal injection of ribavirin showed some benefit in the influenza B and banzi virus infection models.

Heparin-treated, v-myc-transformed chicken heart mesenchymal cells assume a normal morphology but are hypersensitive to epidermal growth factor (EGF) and brain fibroblast growth factor (bFGF); cells transformed by the v-Ha-ras oncogene are refractory to EGF and bFGF but are hypersensitive to insulin-like growth factors.

Chicken heart mesenchymal cells do not proliferate in culture medium containing heat-defibrinogenated plasma but proliferate briskly when incubated with epidermal growth factor (EGF) or brain fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) plus insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) or when infected with sarcoma or erythroblastosis viruses. When infected with the retrovirus MC29, which bears a v-myc oncogene, chicken heart mesenchymal cells proliferate at a more modest rate and become morphologically transformed. Heparin at 25 microgram/ml causes these MC29-transformed cells to become proliferatively quiescent and to assume a normal morphology. Heparin-treated MC29-infected cells are, however, 100 times more sensitive to EGF than are their normal, uninfected counterparts. MC29-infected cells appear, likewise, to be hypersensitive to bFGF and to PDGF preparations but not to insulin. We hypothesize, therefore, (i) that heparin prevents the generation by cells of a mitogen from plasma protein precursors in the culture medium; (ii) that the v-myc oncogene renders cells hypersensitive to EGF, bFGF, PDGF, and the putative plasma-protein-derived mitogen; and (iii) that MC29-infected cells must proliferate in order to manifest the transformed morphology. Chicken heart mesenchymal cells infected with a recombinant spleen necrosis virus containing a v-ras oncogene are morphologically transformed but proliferate only sluggishly in plasma-containing medium without added mitogenic hormones. Heparin does not significantly affect their behavior. They are refractory to mitogenic stimulation by EGF or bFGF suggesting that ras proteins mediate the effects of receptors for these hormones. The SNV/v-ras-infected cells proliferate briskly, however, in response to hyperphysiological concentrations of insulin, an IGF surrogate, and are considerably more sensitive to this IGF mitogenicity than are their normal, uninfected counterparts.