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Cutting-Edge Research on Antiviral Therapy

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pharmacology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 July 2024 | Viewed by 1076

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Dipartimento Biotecnologie, Chimica e Farmacia, Università degli Studi di Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy
Interests: sustainability and neglected diseases; analytics; food chemistry; medicinal chemistry; rare tumors and emerging viruses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biotechnologies, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Siena, I-53100 Siena, Italy
Interests: antiviral compounds; novel foods; edible insects; nutraceuticals and functionalized foods
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last ten years, globalization, global warming, and population aging have contributed to the spread of emerging or re-emerging viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, West Nile, Dengue, Zika, Ebola, and, recently, the monkeypox virus. The number of reported cases is impressive, and considering that many viral infections occur asymptomatically, it is conceivable that numbers will increase significantly in the coming years.

With the risk of new epidemics just around the corner, there is an urgent need to find new antivirals that are able to counter future epidemics. Antivirals can be designed using computational methods, rational drug design, high-throughput screening, or by finding novel uses for already-developed compounds (drug repurposing).

This Special Issue of IJMS will focus on advances in the field of antiviral therapy, including the development of novel antivirals, drug-repurposing approaches, mechanism of action elucidation, sustainable procedures to scale up the synthesis of existing antivirals, and optimization of ADME and PK properties. We welcome the submission of papers focusing on the development of antivirals using cutting-edge technologies such as proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) and ribonuclease-targeting chimeras (RIBOTACs).

Dr. Elena Dreassi
Dr. Annalaura Brai
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • antivirals
  • PROTACs
  • RIBOTACs
  • ADME
  • PK
  • medicinal chemistry
  • viruses

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 5441 KiB  
Article
Identification of Novel Non-Nucleoside Inhibitors of Zika Virus NS5 Protein Targeting MTase Activity
by Diego Fiorucci, Micaela Meaccini, Giulio Poli, Maria Alfreda Stincarelli, Chiara Vagaggini, Simone Giannecchini, Priscila Sutto-Ortiz, Bruno Canard, Etienne Decroly, Elena Dreassi, Annalaura Brai and Maurizio Botta
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(4), 2437; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25042437 - 19 Feb 2024
Viewed by 836
Abstract
Zika virus (ZIKV) is a positive-sense single-stranded virus member of the Flaviviridae family. Among other arboviruses, ZIKV can cause neurological disorders such as Guillain Barré syndrome, and it can have congenital neurological manifestations and affect fertility. ZIKV nonstructural protein 5 (NS5) is essential [...] Read more.
Zika virus (ZIKV) is a positive-sense single-stranded virus member of the Flaviviridae family. Among other arboviruses, ZIKV can cause neurological disorders such as Guillain Barré syndrome, and it can have congenital neurological manifestations and affect fertility. ZIKV nonstructural protein 5 (NS5) is essential for viral replication and limiting host immune detection. Herein, we performed virtual screening to identify novel small-molecule inhibitors of the ZIKV NS5 methyltransferase (MTase) domain. Compounds were tested against the MTases of both ZIKV and DENV, demonstrating good inhibitory activities against ZIKV MTase. Extensive molecular dynamic studies conducted on the series led us to identify other derivatives with improved activity against the MTase and limiting ZIKV infection with an increased selectivity index. Preliminary pharmacokinetic parameters have been determined, revealing excellent stability over time. Preliminary in vivo toxicity studies demonstrated that the hit compound 17 is well tolerated after acute administration. Our results provide the basis for further optimization studies on novel non-nucleoside MTase inhibitors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cutting-Edge Research on Antiviral Therapy)
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