Paulo Ricardo da Silva Sanches, João Caldana Elias de Campos Faria, Cíntia Bittar, Hugo Alexandre Siqueira Guberovich Olivieri, Nathalya Cristina de Moraes Roso Mesquita, Gabriela Dias Noske, Andre Schutzer de Godoy, Glaucius Oliva, Paula Rahal, Eduardo Maffud Cilli
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Peptide drugs are advantageous because they are subject to rational design and exhibit highly diverse structures and broad biological activities. The NS2B-NS3 protein is a particularly promising flavivirus therapeutic target, with extensive research on the development of inhibitors as therapeutic candidates, and was used as a model in this work to determine the mechanism by which GA-Hecate inhibits ZIKV replication.
Objective: The present study aimed to evaluate the potential of GA-Hecate, a new antiviral developed by our group, against the Brazilian Zika virus and to evaluate the mechanism of action of this compound on the flavivirus NS2B-NS3 protein.
Methods: Solid-phase peptide Synthesis, High-Performance Liquid Chromatography, and Mass Spectrometry were used to obtain, purify, and characterize the synthesized compound. Real-time and enzymatic assays were used to determine the antiviral potential of GA-Hecate against ZIKV.
Results: The RT-qPCR results showed that GA-Hecate decreased the number of ZIKV RNA copies in the virucidal, pre-treatment, and post-entry assays, with 5- to 6-fold fewer RNA copies at the higher nontoxic concentration in Vero cells (HNTC: 10 μM) than in the control cells. Enzymatic and kinetic assays indicated that GA-Hecate acts as a competitive ZIKV NS2B-NS3 protease inhibitor with an IC50 of 32 nM and has activity against the yellow fever virus protease.
Conclusion: The results highlight the antiviral potential of the GA-Hecate bioconjugate and open the door for the development of new antivirals.
期刊介绍:
Protein & Peptide Letters publishes letters, original research papers, mini-reviews and guest edited issues in all important aspects of protein and peptide research, including structural studies, advances in recombinant expression, function, synthesis, enzymology, immunology, molecular modeling, and drug design. Manuscripts must have a significant element of novelty, timeliness and urgency that merit rapid publication. Reports of crystallization and preliminary structure determination of biologically important proteins are considered only if they include significant new approaches or deal with proteins of immediate importance, and preliminary structure determinations of biologically important proteins. Purely theoretical/review papers should provide new insight into the principles of protein/peptide structure and function. Manuscripts describing computational work should include some experimental data to provide confirmation of the results of calculations.
Protein & Peptide Letters focuses on:
Structure Studies
Advances in Recombinant Expression
Drug Design
Chemical Synthesis
Function
Pharmacology
Enzymology
Conformational Analysis
Immunology
Biotechnology
Protein Engineering
Protein Folding
Sequencing
Molecular Recognition
Purification and Analysis