Direct Binding of a Hepatitis C Virus Inhibitor to the Viral Capsid Protein

Over 130 million people are infected chronically with hepatitis C virus (HCV), which, together with HBV, is the leading cause of liver disease. Novel small molecule inhibitors of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) are needed to complement or replace current treatments based on pegylated interferon and ribavirin, which are only partially successful and plagued with side-effects. Assembly of the virion is initiated by the oligomerization of core, the capsid protein, followed by the interaction with NS5A and other HCV proteins. By screening for inhibitors of core dimerization, we previously discovered peptides and drug-like compounds that disrupt interactions between core and other HCV proteins, NS3 and NS5A, and block HCV production. Here we report that a biotinylated derivative of SL209, a prototype small molecule inhibitor of core dimerization (IC50 of 2.80 µM) that inhibits HCV production with an EC50 of 3.20 µM, is capable of penetrating HCV-infected cells and tracking with core. Interaction between the inhibitors, core and other viral proteins was demonstrated by SL209–mediated affinity-isolation of HCV proteins from lysates of infected cells, or of the corresponding recombinant HCV proteins. SL209-like inhibitors of HCV core may form the basis of novel treatments of Hepatitis C in combination with other target-specific HCV drugs such as inhibitors of the NS3 protease, the NS5B polymerase, or the NS5A regulatory protein. More generally, our work supports the hypothesis that inhibitors of viral capsid formation might constitute a new class of potent antiviral agents, as was recently also shown for HIV capsid inhibitors

Prediction of molecular crystal structures using a genetic algorithm: Validation by GenMol (TM) on energetic compounds

International audienceThis work deals with the problem of finding for a given industrial target the molecule conformation leading to the most efficient crystal polymorph and/or designing unknown crystal packing of new molecules. The originality of the method relies first on constraining the domain of the most probable crystals, before converging towards the predicted packing by a double genetic-refining optimization algorithm. Validation of this approach is discussed on the case study of 46 energetic crystal compounds, using the semi Ab Initio and Molecular Mechanics code GenMol™. This validation shows that all observed structures are retrieved in any circumstances with a relatively high number of good rankings

Synthesis and antiviral activity of new anti-HIV amprenavir bioisosteres

International audienc

A Time-Resolved Fluorescence–Resonance Energy Transfer Assay for Identifying Inhibitors of Hepatitis C Virus Core Dimerization

Binding of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA to core, the capsid protein, results in the formation of the nucleocapsid, the first step in the assembly of the viral particle. A novel assay was developed to discover small molecule inhibitors of core dimerization. This assay is based on time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer (TR-FRET) between anti-tag antibodies labeled with either europium cryptate (Eu) or allophycocyanin (XL-665). The N-terminal 106-residue portion of core protein (core106) was tagged with either glutathione-S-transferase (GST) or a Flag peptide. Tag-free core106 was selected as the reference inhibitor. The assay was used to screen the library of pharmacologically active compounds (LOPAC) consisting of 1,280 compounds and a 2,240-compound library from the Center for Chemical Methodology and Library Development at Boston University (CMLD-BU). Ten of the 28 hits from the primary TR-FRET run were confirmed in a secondary amplified luminescent proximity homogeneous assay (ALPHA screen). One hit was further characterized by dose–response analysis yielding an IC50 of 9.3 μM. This 513 Da compound was shown to inhibit HCV production in cultured hepatoma cells