Research Area: Infection
Biological Activity:
Docosanol is a saturated fatty alcoholused traditionally as an emollient, emulsifier, and thickener in cosmetics, nutritional supplement (as an individual entity and also as a constituent of polyicosanol). [1] It works by inhibiting fusion between the human cell plasma membrane and the herpes simplex virus (HSV) envelope, thereby preventing viral entry into cells and subsequent viral replication. Unlike other cold-sore antivirals, docosanol does not act directly on the virus, and as such it is unlikely it will produce drug resistant mutants of HSV. The ED50 of 1-docosanol is around 2.5 mg/ml for plaque inhibition and 1.7 mg/ml for inhibition of virus production for wild-type and Acv-resistant HSV-2. [2]