Alternative screening approaches for discovery of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus inhibitors.

Two coronaviruses causing severe respiratory disease and high mortality rates emerging within the past dozen years reinforces the need for clinically efficacious antivirals targeting coronaviruses. Alternative screening approaches for antivirals against the recently emergent Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) may provide lead compounds to address this need. Two Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (AAC) papers screened libraries of approved compounds that may potentially be repurposed as MERS-CoV antivirals. A third AAC paper showed that a previously described severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) helicase inhibitor also has activity against MERS-CoV.

A genotype 2b NS5B polymerase with novel substitutions supports replication of a chimeric HCV 1b:2b replicon containing a genotype 1b NS3-5A background.

HCV diversity suggests that evaluation of HCV inhibitors for broad genotypic efficacy is warranted. The replicon system enables cell-culture compound efficacy evaluation against an active replication complex, and a functional replicon dependent upon a genotype 2b polymerase would augment existing cell-culture efficacy studies that are presently limited to genotype 1a, 1b, and 2a replicons. We made a chimeric Neo(r) 1b:2b replicon where genotype 2b NS5B was inserted into a genotype 1b NS3-5A background and transfected replicon RNA to generate Neo(r) cell lines. All cell lines contained novel substitutions within NS5B which were subsequently engineered into the parental 1b:2b replicon and shown to enhance replication to various degrees. A single NS5B M31I substitution enhanced replication to levels sufficiently robust to quantify sensitivity to HCV inhibitors in a transient replication assay. The M31I 1b:2b replicon was similarly sensitive to an active-site nucleoside inhibitor of NS5B as genotype 1b replicons, but was insensitive to two non-nucleoside inhibitors which were otherwise efficacious against the genotype 1b replicons. This work describes a novel HCV replicon sustained by a genotype 2b polymerase that is sufficiently robust for quantifiable analysis in a transient replication assay, and demonstrates its utility in characterizing anti-HCV compounds for cross-genotypic efficacy.

Replication fitness and NS5B drug sensitivity of diverse hepatitis C virus isolates characterized by using a transient replication assay.

The innate genetic variability characteristic of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection makes drug resistance a concern in the clinical development of HCV inhibitors. To address this, a transient replication assay was developed to evaluate the replication fitness and the drug sensitivity of NS5B sequences isolated from the sera of patients with chronic HCV infection. This novel assay directly compares replication between NS5B isolates, thus bypassing the potential sequence and metabolic differences which may arise with independent replicon cell lines. Patient-derived NS5B sequences were similar to those of the established HCV genotypes, but isolates from each patient shared genetic variability specific to that patient, with additional genetic variability observed across the individual isolates. Every sample provided functional NS5B isolates which supported subgenomic replication, frequently to levels comparable to that of laboratory-optimized replicons. All isolates were equivalently sensitive to an active-site nucleoside inhibitor, but the sensitivities to a panel of nonnucleoside inhibitors which targeted three distinct sites on NS5B varied among the isolates. In con1, the original laboratory-optimized replicon, the NS5B S282T substitution confers resistance to the nucleoside inhibitor but impairs replication. This substitution was engineered into both genotype 1a and genotype 1b isolates. Replication was severely debilitated, demonstrating that no compensatory residues were encoded within these genetically diverse sequences to increase the replication fitness of the mutated replicons. This work describes a transient replicon-based assay that can support the clinical development of compounds which target NS5B and demonstrates its utility by examining several patient-derived NS5B isolates for replication fitness and differential sensitivity to NS5B inhibitors.

Structure-activity relationship of heterobase-modified 2'-C-methyl ribonucleosides as inhibitors of hepatitis C virus RNA replication.

Hepatitis C virus infection constitutes a significant health problem in need of more effective therapies. We have recently identified 2'-C-methyladenosine and 2'-C-methylguanosine as potent nucleoside inhibitors of HCV RNA replication in vitro. However, both of these compounds suffered from significant limitations. 2'-C-Methyladenosine was found to be susceptible to enzymatic conversions by adenosine deaminase and purine nucleoside phosphorylase, and it displayed limited oral bioavailability in the rat. 2'-C-Methylguanosine, on the other hand, was neither efficiently taken up in cells nor phosphorylated well. As part of an attempt to address these limitations, we now report upon the synthesis and evaluation of a series of heterobase-modified 2'-C-methyl ribonucleosides. The structure-activity relationship within this series of nucleosides reveals 4-amino-7-(2-C-methyl-beta-d-ribofuranosyl)-7H-pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine and 4-amino-5-fluoro-7-(2-C-methyl-beta-d-ribofuranosyl)-7H-pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine as potent and noncytotoxic inhibitors of HCV RNA replication. Both 4-amino-7-(2-C-methyl-beta-d-ribofuranosyl)-7H-pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine and 4-amino-5-fluoro-7-(2-C-methyl-beta-d-ribofuranosyl)-7H-pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine display improved enzymatic stability profiles as compared to that of 2'-C-methyladenosine. Consistent with these observations, the most potent compound, 4-amino-5-fluoro-7H-pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine ribonucleoside, is orally bioavailable in the rat. Together, the potency of the 2'-C-methyl-4-amino-pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine ribonucleosides and their improved pharmacokinetic properties relative to that of 2'-C-methyladenosine suggests that this class of compounds may have clinical utility.

A 7-deaza-adenosine analog is a potent and selective inhibitor of hepatitis C virus replication with excellent pharmacokinetic properties.

Improved treatments for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are needed due to the suboptimal response rates and deleterious side effects associated with current treatment options. The triphosphates of 2'-C-methyl-adenosine and 2'-C-methyl-guanosine were previously shown to be potent inhibitors of the HCV RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) that is responsible for the replication of viral RNA in cells. Here we demonstrate that the inclusion of a 7-deaza modification in a series of purine nucleoside triphosphates results in an increase in inhibitory potency against the HCV RdRp and improved pharmacokinetic properties. Notably, incorporation of the 7-deaza modification into 2'-C-methyl-adenosine results in an inhibitor with a 20-fold-increased potency as the 5'-triphosphate in HCV RdRp assays while maintaining the inhibitory potency of the nucleoside in the bicistronic HCV replicon and with reduced cellular toxicity. In contrast, while 7-deaza-2'-C-methyl-GTP also displays enhanced inhibitory potency in enzyme assays, due to poor cellular penetration and/or metabolism, the nucleoside does not inhibit replication of a bicistronic HCV replicon in cell culture. 7-Deaza-2'-C-methyl-adenosine displays promising in vivo pharmacokinetics in three animal species, as well as an acute oral lethal dose in excess of 2,000 mg/kg of body weight in mice. Taken together, these data demonstrate that 7-deaza-2'-C-methyl-adenosine is an attractive candidate for further investigation as a potential treatment for HCV infection.

Characterization of resistance to non-obligate chain-terminating ribonucleoside analogs that inhibit hepatitis C virus replication in vitro.

The urgent need for efficacious drugs to treat chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection requires a concerted effort to develop inhibitors specific for virally encoded enzymes. We demonstrate that 2'-C-methyl ribonucleosides are efficient chain-terminating inhibitors of HCV genome replication. Characterization of drug-resistant HCV replicons defined a single S282T mutation within the active site of the viral polymerase that conferred loss of sensitivity to structurally related compounds in both replicon and isolated polymerase assays. Biochemical analyses demonstrated that resistance at the level of the enzyme results from a combination of reduced affinity of the mutant polymerase for the drug and an increased ability to extend the incorporated nucleoside analog. Importantly, the combination of these agents with interferon-alpha results in synergistic inhibition of HCV genome replication in cell culture. Furthermore, 2'-C-methyl-substituted ribonucleosides also inhibited replication of genetically related viruses such as bovine diarrhea virus, yellow fever, and West African Nile viruses. These observations, together with the finding that 2'-C-methyl-guanosine in particular has a favorable pharmacological profile, suggest that this class of compounds may have broad utility in the treatment of HCV and other flavivirus infections.