Aurintricarboxylic Acid Is a Potent Inhibitor of Influenza A and B Virus Neuraminidases

Hashem, Anwar M.; Flaman, Anathea S.; Farnsworth, Aaron; Brown, Earl G.; Van Domselaar, Gary; He, Runtao; Li, Xuguang

The toxicity of ATA will need to be evaluated further in animals. In this study, we showed that ATA is associated with relatively low toxicity in tissue cultures, with the SI being around 88.8. Although in vivo toxicity studies of ATA are rather limited, previous research in hamsters has shown that infusion of ATA was well tolerated in a dose of up to 1 mg/kg/hour for 2 weeks [48] . Also, Jan Balzarini et al. [20] have found that a single ATA dose of 340 mg/kg in NMRI mice was associated with LD 50 and that mice had a median life span of 18 days upon intra-peritoneal administration of 31 mg/kg/day. Intra-tracheal inhalation showed that single doses of ATA as high as 4 mg/ kg were tolerated well in mice [49, 50] . However, the therapeutic and toxic doses would have to be determined in animal studies, which are currently under investigation in our laboratory.