Scientists studying how regulated herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection unexpectedly found that inhibiting EZH2/1 suppressed viral infection. The research group, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health, then demonstrated that EZH2/1 inhibitors also enhanced the cellular antiviral response in cultured cells and in mice. The NIAID group demonstrated that EZH2/1 inhibitors not only suppressed HSV infection, spread, and reactivation in mice, but also suppressed human cytomegalovirus, adenovirus, and Zika virus infections in cell culture using human primary fibroblast cell lines. These authors suggest that EZH2/1 inhibitors have considerable potential as broad-spectrum antivirals.

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