NS3 protease from flavivirus as a target for designing antiviral inhibitors against dengue virus |
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Authors: | Natarajan Satheesh |
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Institution: | Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur Malayasia. |
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Abstract: | The development of novel therapeutic agents is essential for combating the increasing number of cases of dengue fever in endemic countries and among a large number of travelers from non-endemic countries. The dengue virus has three structural proteins and seven non-structural (NS) proteins. NS3 is a multifunctional protein with an N-terminal protease domain (NS3pro) that is responsible for proteolytic processing of the viral polyprotein, and a C-terminal region that contains an RNA triphosphatase, RNA helicase and RNA-stimulated NTPase domain that are essential for RNA replication. The serine protease domain of NS3 plays a central role in the replicative cycle of dengue virus. This review discusses the recent structural and biological studies on the NS2B-NS3 protease-helicase and considers the prospects for the development of small molecules as antiviral drugs to target this fascinating, multifunctional protein. |
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Keywords: | antiviral inhibitor drug discovery multifunctional protein NS3 protease |
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