{"title":"Viral G-quadruplexes: New frontiers in virus pathogenesis and antiviral therapy.","authors":"Emanuela Ruggiero, Sara N Richter","doi":"10.1016/bs.armc.2020.04.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/bs.armc.2020.04.001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Viruses are the most abundant organisms on our planet, affecting all living beings: some of them are responsible for massive epidemics that concern health, national economies and the overall welfare of societies. Although advances in antiviral research have led to successful therapies against several human viruses, still some of them cannot be eradicated from the host and most of them do not have any treatment available. Consequently, innovative antiviral therapies are urgently needed. In the past few years, research on G-quadruplexes (G4s) in viruses has boomed, providing powerful evidence for the regulatory role of G4s in key viral steps. Comprehensive bioinformatics analyses have traced putative G4-forming sequences in the genome of almost all human viruses, showing that their distribution is statistically significant and their presence highly conserved. Since the genomes of viruses are remarkably variable, high conservation rates strongly suggest a crucial role of G4s in the viral replication cycle and evolution, emphasizing the possibility of targeting viral G4s as a new pharmacological approach in antiviral therapy. Recent studies have demonstrated the formation and function of G4s in pathogens responsible for serious diseases, such as HIV-1, Hepatitis B and C, Ebola viruses, to cite a few. In this chapter, we present the state of the art on the structural and functional characterization of viral G4s in RNA viruses, DNA viruses and retroviruses. We also present the G4 ligands that provide further details on the viral G4 role and which, showing promising antiviral activity, which could be exploited for the development of innovative antiviral agents.</p>","PeriodicalId":8033,"journal":{"name":"Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry","volume":"54 ","pages":"101-131"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7233243/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37951424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Granzhan, R. P. Martins, R. Fåhraeus, M. Blondel, M. Teulade‐Fichou
{"title":"Quadruplex-interacting compounds for regulating the translation of the Epstein–Barr virus nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) mRNA: A new strategy to prevent and treat EBV-related cancers","authors":"A. Granzhan, R. P. Martins, R. Fåhraeus, M. Blondel, M. Teulade‐Fichou","doi":"10.1016/bs.armc.2020.05.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.armc.2020.05.001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":8033,"journal":{"name":"Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/bs.armc.2020.05.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54061376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fundamentals of G-quadruplex biology.","authors":"F Brad Johnson","doi":"10.1016/bs.armc.2020.06.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/bs.armc.2020.06.004","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Several decades elapsed between the first descriptions of G-quadruplex nucleic acid structures (G4s) assembled <i>in vitro</i> and the emergence of experimental findings indicating that such structures can form and function in living systems. A large body of evidence now supports roles for G4s in many aspects of nucleic acid biology, spanning processes from transcription and chromatin structure, mRNA processing, protein translation, DNA replication and genome stability, and telomere and mitochondrial function. Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that some of this evidence is tentative, which is not surprising given the technical challenges associated with demonstrating G4s in biology. Here I provide an overview of evidence for G4 biology, focusing particularly on the many potential pitfalls that can be encountered in its investigation, and briefly discuss some of broader biological processes that may be impacted by G4s including cancer.</p>","PeriodicalId":8033,"journal":{"name":"Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry","volume":"54 ","pages":"3-44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/bs.armc.2020.06.004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38298275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. C. Bachar, R. Bachar, K. Jannat, R. Jahan, M. Rahmatullah
{"title":"Hepatoprotective natural products","authors":"S. C. Bachar, R. Bachar, K. Jannat, R. Jahan, M. Rahmatullah","doi":"10.1016/bs.armc.2020.06.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.armc.2020.06.003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":8033,"journal":{"name":"Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/bs.armc.2020.06.003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"54061788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}