EBOLA, folate receptor-1, farletuzumab and cancer

EBOLA, a virus disease causing a global health alarm and one of the most fatal type of viral hemorrhagic fevers employs folate receptor-1 for cellular entry. Folate receptor-1/FLR-1 is also one of the important proteins upregulated in cancer facilitating enhanced folate entry, which is used for nucleotide synthesis to maintain increased DNA synthesis. Currently, FLR-1 inhibitor farletuzumab is tested in Phase-3 trials for the treatment of ovarian cancer. This agent may also act beneficial in blocking EBOLA entry into cells and help alleviating the severity of EBOLA. Vice versa, if medicine could modify the deadly course of this virus disease by modifying the viral genotype in future, EBOLA virus may act as a gene therapy vector similar to the current approaches to employ modified AIDS virus and other members of lentiviridae in gene delivery.