Discovery and SAR study of piperidine-based derivatives as novel influenza virus inhibitors.

ABSTRACT

A series of piperidine-based derivatives were identified as novel and potent inhibitors of the influenza virus through structural modification of a compound that was selected from a high-throughput screen. Various analogues were synthesized and confirmed as inhibitors. The structure­activity relationship (SAR) studies suggested that the ether linkage between the quinoline and piperidine is critical for the inhibitory activity. The optimized compound tert-butyl 4-(quinolin-4-yloxy)piperidine-1-carboxylate 11e had an excellent inhibitory activity against influenza virus infection from a variety of influenza virus strains, with EC50 values as low as 0.05 µM. The selectivity index value (SI = MLD50/EC50) of 11e is over 160000 based on cytotoxicity, measured by MTT assays of three cell lines. We carried out a time-of-addition experiment to delineate the mechanism of inhibition. The result indicates that 11e interferes with the early to middle stage of influenza virus replication.