And a bit of history on Ivermectin....
Review Article
Ivermectin: enigmatic multifaceted ‘wonder’ drug continues to surprise and exceed expectations
Ivermectin: enigmatic multifaceted ‘wonder’ drug continues to surprise and exceed expectations - The Journal of Antibiotics
Antiviral (e.g. HIV, dengue, encephalitis)
Recent research has confounded the belief, held for most of the past 40 years, that ivermectin was devoid of any antiviral characteristics. Ivermectin has been found to potently inhibit replication of the yellow fever virus, with EC50 values in the sub-nanomolar range. It also inhibits replication in several other flaviviruses, including dengue, Japanese encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitis, probably by targeting non-structural 3 helicase activity.
97 Ivermectin inhibits dengue viruses and interrupts virus replication, bestowing protection against infection with all distinct virus serotypes, and has unexplored potential as a dengue antiviral.
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Ivermectin has also been demonstrated to be a potent broad-spectrum specific inhibitor of importin α/β-mediated nuclear transport and demonstrates antiviral activity against several RNA viruses by blocking the nuclear trafficking of viral proteins. It has been shown to have potent antiviral action against HIV-1 and dengue viruses, both of which are dependent on the importin protein superfamily for several key cellular processes. Ivermectin may be of import in disrupting HIV-1 integrase in HIV-1 as well as NS-5 (non-structural protein 5) polymerase in dengue viruses.
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Antibacterial (tuberculosis and Buruli ulcer)
Up until recently, avermectins were also believed to lack antibacterial activity. However, in 2012, reports emerged that ivermectin was capable of preventing infection of epithelial cells by the bacterial pathogen
Chlamydia trachomatis, and to do so at doses that could be used to counter sexually transmitted or ocular infections.
101 In 2013, researchers confirmed that ivermectin was bactericidal against a range of mycobacterial organisms, including multidrug resistant and extensively drug-resistant strains of
Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the authors suggesting that ivermectin could be re-purposed for tuberculosis treatment. Although other researchers found that ivermectin does not possess anti-tuberculosis activity, the results were later shown to be non-comparable due to differences in testing methods, with the original findings being confirmed by further work in Japan.
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104 Unfortunately, the potential use of ivermectin for tuberculosis treatment is doubtful due to possible neurotoxicity at high dosage levels. Ivermectin was also reported to be bactericidal against
M. ulcerans,
105 although other researchers found no significant activity against this bacterium.
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Anti-cancer
There is a continuously accumulating body of evidence that ivermectin may have substantial value in the treatment of a variety of cancers. The avermectins are known to possess pronounced antitumor activity,
107 as well as the ability to potentiate the antitumor action of vincristine on Ehrlich carcinoma, melanoma B16 and P388 lymphoid leukemia, including the vincristine-resistant strain P388.
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Over the past few years, there have been steadily increasing reports that ivermectin may have varying uses as an anti-cancer agent, as it has been shown to exhibit both anti-cancer and anti-cancer stem cell properties. An in silico chemical genomics approach designed to predict whether any existing drugs might be useful in tackling glioblastoma, lung and breast cancer, indicated that ivermectin may be a useful compound in this respect.
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In human ovarian cancer and NF2 tumor cell lines, high-dose ivermectin inactivates protein kinase PAK1 and blocks PAK1-dependent growth. PAK proteins are essential for cytoskeletal reorganization and nuclear signaling, PAK1 being implicated in tumor genesis while inhibiting PAK1 signals induces tumor cell apoptosis (cell death).
PAK1 is essential for the growth of more than 70% of all human cancers, including breast, prostate, pancreatic, colon, gastric, lung, cervical and thyroid cancers, as well as hepatoma, glioma, melanoma, multiple myeloma and for neurofibromatosis tumors.
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