Hindered nucleoside analogs as antiflaviviridae agents

2004 ◽  
Vol 76 (5) ◽  
pp. 1007-1015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Manfredini ◽  
Angela Angusti ◽  
A. C. Veronese ◽  
Elisa Durini ◽  
S. Vertuani ◽  
...  

Flaviviridae are an important family of viruses, responsible for widely spread diseases such as dengue and West Nile fever and hepatitis C. Despite the severity of the related diseases, no effective antiviral treatments for infection are available. Following our discovery of adenosine-hindered analogs as potent antiflaviviridae agents, we have continued our investigation on guanosine and inosine derivatives, which were evaluated for activity against BVDV, YFV, DENV, and WNV viruses in cell-based assays. The present study allowed us to identify some newer features that led to improve the antiviral potency (down to the µM range) and to selectively inhibit BVDV and YFV viruses. The molecular modeling results were consistent with the hypothesis that test analogs act as RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) inhibitors by interacting with a surface allosteric binding pocket.

2020 ◽  
Vol 295 (30) ◽  
pp. 10112-10124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Villalba ◽  
Jiawen Li ◽  
Kenneth A. Johnson

NS5B is the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase that catalyzes the replication of the hepatitis C virus genome. It is a major target for antiviral drugs including nucleoside analogs, such as the prodrugs mericitabine and sofosbuvir, which get metabolized to 2′-fluoro-2′C-methylcytidine-5′-triphosphate and 2′-fluoro-2′C-methyluridine-5′-triphosphate, respectively. These analogs act as chain terminators after they are incorporated during RNA synthesis. Recently, it has been shown that NS5B can efficiently remove chain terminators by a nucleotide-mediated excision reaction that rescues RNA synthesis. In this study, we use transient-state kinetics to understand the efficiency of inhibition for five nucleoside analogs. We show that CTP analogs are readily incorporated into a growing primer by NS5B but are also efficiently excised. In contrast, although UMP analogs are more slowly incorporated, the excision of UMP is slow and inefficient, and modifications to the 2′-carbon of the UTP ribose ring further decreased rates of excision to an undetectable level. Taken together, these data suggest that the clinical effectiveness of sofosbuvir is largely a function of being intractable to nucleotide-mediated excision compared with similar nucleoside analogs.


2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (22) ◽  
pp. 12207-12217 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. T. Ranjith-Kumar ◽  
R. T. Sarisky ◽  
L. Gutshall ◽  
M. Thomson ◽  
C. C. Kao

ABSTRACT The hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) has several distinct biochemical activities, including initiation of RNA synthesis by a de novo mechanism, extension from a primed template, nontemplated nucleotide addition, and synthesis of a recombinant RNA product from two or more noncovalently linked templates (template switch). All of these activities require specific interaction with nucleoside triphosphates (NTPs). Based on the structure of the HCV RdRp bound to NTP (S. Bressanelli, L. Tomei, F. A. Rey, and R. DeFrancesco, J. Virol. 76:3482-3492, 2002), we mutated the amino acid residues that contact the putative initiation GTP and examined the effects on the various activities. Although all mutations retained the ability for primer extension, alanine substitution at R48, R158, R386, R394, or D225 decreased de novo initiation, and two or more mutations abolished de novo initiation. While the prototype enzyme had a Km for GTP of 3.5 μM, all of the mutations except one had Km s that were three- to sevenfold higher. These results demonstrate that the affected residues are functionally required to interact with the initiation nucleotide. Unexpectedly, many of the mutations also affected the addition of nontemplated nucleotide, indicating that residues in the initiating NTP (NTPi)-binding pocket are required for nontemplated nucleotide additions. Interestingly, mutations in D225 are dramatically affected in template switch, indicating that this residue of the NTPi pocket also interacts with components in the elongation complex. We also examined the interaction of ribavirin triphosphate with the NTPi-binding site.


2013 ◽  
Vol 06 (01) ◽  
pp. 1250062
Author(s):  
YONG-HONG HU ◽  
BAO-HUA ZHANG

In this paper, we take naturally occurring 2-benzylidenebenzofuran-3-ones (aurones) inhibitors of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) as an example to study the Multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) method for structure-activity relationship. By analyzing training set molecules, our MDS method combined with a PROXSCAL algorithm can predict inhibitory activity of most compounds correctly. Thus, a new sample's activity can be estimated and judged conveniently, and whether it should be synthesized can be known. The MDS method is applicable to optimize the structure for a compound and to provide suggestions for drug design.


2000 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 851-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangxiang Luo ◽  
Robert K. Hamatake ◽  
Danielle M. Mathis ◽  
Jason Racela ◽  
Karen L. Rigat ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS5B protein possesses an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) activity, a major function responsible for replication of the viral RNA genome. To further characterize the RdRp activity, NS5B proteins were expressed from recombinant baculoviruses, purified to near homogeneity, and examined for their ability to synthesize RNA in vitro. As a result, a highly active NS5B RdRp (1b-42), which contains an 18-amino acid C-terminal truncation resulting from a newly created stop codon, was identified among a number of independent isolates. The RdRp activity of the truncated NS5B is comparable to the activity of the full-length protein and is 20 times higher in the presence of Mn2+ than in the presence of Mg2+. When a 384-nucleotide RNA was used as the template, two major RNA products were synthesized by 1b-42. One is a complementary RNA identical in size to the input RNA template (monomer), while the other is a hairpin dimer RNA synthesized by a “copy-back” mechanism. Substantial evidence derived from several experiments demonstrated that the RNA monomer was synthesized through de novo initiation by NS5B rather than by a terminal transferase activity. Synthesis of the RNA monomer requires all four ribonucleotides. The RNA monomer product was verified to be the result of de novo RNA synthesis, as two expected RNA products were generated from monomer RNA by RNase H digestion. In addition, modification of the RNA template by the addition of the chain terminator cordycepin at the 3′ end did not affect synthesis of the RNA monomer but eliminated synthesis of the self-priming hairpin dimer RNA. Moreover, synthesis of RNA on poly(C) and poly(U) homopolymer templates by 1b-42 NS5B did not require the oligonucleotide primer at high concentrations (≥50 μM) of GTP and ATP, further supporting a de novo initiation mechanism. These findings suggest that HCV NS5B is able to initiate RNA synthesis de novo.


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