Credit: Yue Liu & Michael G. Rossmann, Purdue Univ.

An antiviral drug developed for the common cold could be effective against another virus that affected more than 1,000 US children in 2014.

An enterovirus called EV-D68 caused respiratory illness, sometimes severe, in an outbreak last August. Michael Rossmann and his colleagues at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, determined the crystal structure of the virus (pictured) and found that, like other enteroviruses, it has a pocket in one of its proteins.

When the team worked out the structure of EV-D68 in conjunction with pleconaril, a drug that combats the related cold-causing rhinovirus, they found that the drug fitted into this pocket. In cultured cells infected with EV-D68, the compound inhibited the virus better than two other antivirals, suggesting that pleconaril could be a candidate for treating this enterovirus.

Science 347, 71–74 (2015)