bims-antpol 2024-03-31 papers

Issue of 2024–03–31
two papers selected by
Rick Sheridan, EMSKE Phytochem

Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2024 Mar 01. pii: 328. [Epub ahead of print]17(3):

Marine-Derived Bioactive Metabolites as a Potential Therapeutic Intervention in Managing Viral Diseases: Insights from the SARS-CoV-2 In Silico and Pre-Clinical Studies.

Queency N Okechukwu, Feyisayo O Adepoju, Osman N Kanwugu, Parise Adadi, Ángel Serrano-Aroca, Vladimir N Uversky, Charles Odilichukwu R Okpala.

Worldwide urbanization and subsequent migration have accelerated the emergence and spread of diverse novel human diseases. Among them, diseases caused by viruses could result in epidemics, typified by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which hit the globe towards the end of December 2019. The global battle against SARS-CoV-2 has reignited interest in finding alternative treatments for viral infections. The marine world offers a large repository of diverse and unique bioactive compounds. Over the years, many antiviral compounds from marine organisms have been isolated and tested in vitro and in vivo. However, given the increasing need for alternative treatment, in silico analysis appears to provide a time- and cost-effective approach to identifying the potential antiviral compounds from the vast pool of natural metabolites isolated from marine organisms. In this perspective review, we discuss marine-derived bioactive metabolites as potential therapeutics for all known disease-causing viruses including the SARS-CoV-2. We demonstrate the efficacy of marine-derived bioactive metabolites in the context of various antiviral activities and their in silico, in vitro, and in vivo capacities.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; marine metabolites; marine organisms; pandemic; therapeutics; viral infection; viruses

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ph17030328

Viruses. 2024 Feb 27. pii: 366. [Epub ahead of print]16(3):

Recent Advances on Targeting Proteases for Antiviral Development.

Pedro Henrique Oliveira Borges, Sabrina Baptista Ferreira, Floriano Paes Silva.

Viral proteases are an important target for drug development, since they can modulate vital pathways in viral replication, maturation, assembly and cell entry. With the (re)appearance of several new viruses responsible for causing diseases in humans, like the West Nile virus (WNV) and the recent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), understanding the mechanisms behind blocking viral protease's function is pivotal for the development of new antiviral drugs and therapeutical strategies. Apart from directly inhibiting the target protease, usually by targeting its active site, several new pathways have been explored to impair its activity, such as inducing protein aggregation, targeting allosteric sites or by inducing protein degradation by cellular proteasomes, which can be extremely valuable when considering the emerging drug-resistant strains. In this review, we aim to discuss the recent advances on a broad range of viral proteases inhibitors, therapies and molecular approaches for protein inactivation or degradation, giving an insight on different possible strategies against this important class of antiviral target.

Keywords: PROTACs; antiviral therapies; covalent inhibitors; natural products; peptidomimetics; viral proteases

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/v16030366