Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 20, Issue 21, 2014

HIV protease (PR) is a key target for antiviral drugs, and HIV protease inhibitors (PIs) are a prime example of successful structure-based drug design. PIs show clear therapeutic benefits, but their efficacy can be compromised by poor bioavailabilitity, unwanted side effects, and most importantly, development of antiviral drug resistance. Therefore, the quest for novel, highly active compounds with improved resistance Read More

Despite the fact that HIV-Protease is an over 20 years old target, computational approaches to rational design of its inhibitors still have a great potential to stimulate the synthesis of new compounds and the discovery of new, potent derivatives, ever capable to overcome the problem of drug resistance. This review deals with successful examples of inhibitors identified by computational approaches, rather than by knowledge-b Read More

Viral DNA integration into the infected cell genome is an essential step in the HIV-1 life cycle. Hence, the viral integrase enzyme has become an important target for antiviral therapy. The integrase's activity action relies on the binding to its cellular partners, therefore the knowledge of the structural determinants is very important from a therapeutic perspective. Here we first review published computer-aided structural pred Read More

Even though a number of groups have identified peptidic inhibitors for DENV and WNV proteases, and several high throughput screening campaigns have been performed, the progress towards drug candidates has been very slow. This is in stark contrast to the related NS3/NS4A protease of HCV for which two peptidomimetic drugs were approved in 2011. In this review we will compare the NS3 proteases of the fl Read More

Viruses belonging to the Flaviviridae family primarily spread through arthropod vectors, and are the major causes of illness and death around the globe. The Flaviviridae family consists of 3 genera which include the Flavivirus genus (type species, yellow fever virus) as the largest genus, the Hepacivirus (type species, hepatitis C virus) and the Pestivirus (type species, bovine virus diarrhea). The flaviviruses (Flavivirus genus) ar Read More

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the major etiological agent of human non-A and non-B hepatitis, affecting more than 170 million people worldwide. While the current standard of care for the treatment of HCV infection is ribavirin in combination with interferon-α (IFN-α), this therapeutic regimen presents several drawbacks, mainly related to important and serious side effects, to resistance issues, and to the lack of efficacy for the Read More

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections are a serious viral health problem globally, causing liver cirrhosis and inflammation that can develop to hepatocellular carcinoma and death. Since the HCV NS3/4A protease complex cleaves the scissile peptide bond in the viral encoded polypeptide to release the non-structural proteins during the viral replication process, this protease is then an important target for drug design. The co Read More

The outbreak of avian influenza A (H5N1) virus has raised a global concern for both the animal as well as human health. Besides vaccination, that may not achieve full protection in certain groups of patients, inhibiting neuraminidase or the transmembrane protein M2 represents the main measure of controlling the disease. Due to alarming emergence of influenza virus strains resistant to the currently available drugs, deve Read More

Viral diseases have been affecting the human race since ancient times. Currently, a long list of diseases caused by the viruses is available and extensive research in this area has resulted in understanding the finest details of the molecular mechanism of pathogenesis caused by these pathogens. Side by side, efforts have been made towards the search and design of antiviral agents that could interfere with viral pathog Read More