Nonstructural proteins of alphavirus—potential targets for drug development

Alphaviruses are enveloped, positive single-stranded RNA viruses, typically transmitted by arthropods. They often cause arthralgia or encephalitic diseases in infected humans and there is currently no targeted antiviral treatment available. The re-emergence of alphaviruses in Asia, Europe, and the A...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Abu Bakar, Farhana, Ng, Lisa F. P.
Other Authors: School of Biological Sciences
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/87583
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45435
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Alphaviruses are enveloped, positive single-stranded RNA viruses, typically transmitted by arthropods. They often cause arthralgia or encephalitic diseases in infected humans and there is currently no targeted antiviral treatment available. The re-emergence of alphaviruses in Asia, Europe, and the Americas over the last decade, including chikungunya and o’nyong’nyong viruses, have intensified the search for selective inhibitors. In this review, we highlight key molecular determinants within the alphavirus replication complex that have been identified as viral targets, focusing on their structure and functionality in viral dissemination. We also summarize recent structural data of these viral targets and discuss how these could serve as templates to facilitate structure-based drug design and development of small molecule inhibitors.