Gancyclovir

From MEpedia, a crowd-sourced encyclopedia of ME and CFS science and history
(Redirected from Cytovene)
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

Gancyclovir (brand name Cytovene) is an antiviral drug with activity against cytomegalovirus.[citation needed]

A 2014 study in mice suggested gancyclovir reduced microglial activation;[1] however follow-up mice studies and in vitro research found it did not have this effect.[2]

The authors of the 2014 paper later published a follow-up paper (2017) based on in vitro and in vivo experiments using ganciclovir. This time they found a potentially pro-inflammatory response, specifically that ganciclovir, in sufficient doses, might stimulate a type-I interferon response in microglia. The authors attributed this response to a DNA-sensing protein called STING. While this result might appear to contradict their earlier anti-neuroinflammatory finding, they suggest it could indicate ganciclovir (GCV) "can exhibit dual function in microglia [...]: in naïve state, GCV induces microglia to be 'primed'; on the other hand, GCV reduces inflammation in active microglia."[3]

See also[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]