Cervical cancer (CC) is a major contributor to cancer-related deaths. Human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes, especially HPV16 and HPV18, are the primary causes of CC-related infections. Although the oncogenic potential of HPV is well established, the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer initiation and persistence remain unclear. In this study, the common proteins between the virus-host interaction network and CC proteome datasets were analyzed to identify proteins involved in HPV-driven oncogenesis. Network topology analysis revealed two key viral proteins, viz. VE7_HPV16 and VE6_HPV18, along with subsequent sequence analysis, identified short linear motifs (SLiMs) in each target that may act as potential hotspots for therapeutic interventions. Different in silico validations, such as active site prediction, protein-protein docking and blind docking analysis, were performed to evaluate the therapeutic potential of the SLiMs-containing regions. In the next step, a structure-based virtual screening approach was employed to identify possible antivirals that bind to the active sites (SLiMs-containing regions) of these proteins. Ten candidate drugs, Pleconaril, Pirodavir, Saquinavir, Delavirdine, and Tipranavir for VE7_HPV16 and Beclabuvir, Velpatasvir, Paritaprevir, Odalasvir, and Ledipasvir for VE6_HPV18, were predicted to exhibit high binding affinities with their respective viral targets. Additionally, Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations were performed to examine the stability of the protein-ligand complexes and evaluate the role of SLiMs-containing regions in modulating virus-host interactions. Collectively, this comprehensive analysis of the virus-host network identified key HPV protein targets and proposed antiviral drug candidates to impede viral contributions to cervical carcinogenesis.

Delavirdine is an anti-HIV agent with structural similarity (presence of methanesulfonamide group) to well-known rapid delayed rectifier potassium current (IKr) inhibitors like dofetilide and E-4031. In spite of this and the fact, that IKr blockade can lead to long QT syndrome with a risk of early afterdepolarization, cardiac arrhythmia and even sudden cardiac death development, there is no information on the cardiac electrophysiological effects of the delavirdine. Therefore, we examined the concentration-dependent acute effects of delavirdine on action potential morphology and on the underlying ion currents in enzymatically dispersed canine ventricular cardiomyocytes, as well as in a hERG-channel- and NaV1.5-expressing cell lines. Delavirdine application in the µM concentration range resulted in rapid, potent and reversible blockade of expressed hERG channels. NaV1.5 channels were slightly reduced by delavirdine. Moreover, APD increase, reduction of maximal rates of phases 1 and 3 and a small increase of Plateau20 amplitude were detected in canine left ventricular isolated cardiomyocytes in a concentration-dependent manner. Accordingly, the delavirdine-sensitive current contained an early and transient, as well as a late outward component corresponding to phases 1 and 3 of the AP. These results support the delavirdine-evoked inhibition of IKr, transient outward potassium current as well as sodium current. As these concentrations are similar to therapeutic plasma values (7-30 µM), delavirdine application might carry some risk of cardiac side effects especially in HIV-infected patients with altered cardiac function or patients with co-administration of drugs metabolized by certain cytochrome P450 isoforms.

In recent years, viral infections such as COVID-19, Zika virus, Nipah virus, Ebola, Influenza, Monkeypox, and Dengue have substantially impacted global health. These outbreaks have led to heightened global health initiatives and collaborative efforts to address and mitigate these significant threats effectively. Thus, developing antiviral treatments and research in this field has become highly important. Heterocycles, particularly indole motifs, have been a valuable resource in drug discovery, as they can be used as treatments or inspire the synthesis of new potent candidates. Indole-containing drugs, such as enfuvirtide (T-20), arbidol, and delavirdine, have demonstrated significant efficacy in treating viral diseases. This review aims to comprehensively assess the latest research and developments in novel indoles as potential scaffolds for antiviral activity. We have compiled detailed information about indoles as potential antivirals by conducting a thorough literature survey from the past ten years. The review includes discussions on synthetic protocols, inhibitory concentrations, SAR study, and computational study. This review shall identify new antiviral indoles that may help to combat new viral threats in the future.

HIV-1 remains a major health problem worldwide since the virus has developed drug-resistant strains, so, the need for novel agents is urgent. The protein reverse transcriptase plays fundamental role in the viruses' replication cycle. FDA approved Delavirdine bearing a sulfonamide moiety, while thiazolidinone has demonstrated significant anti-HIV activity as a core heterocycle or derivative of substituted heterocycles. In this study, thirty new thiazolidinone derivatives (series A, B and C) bearing sulfonamide group were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their HIV-1 RT inhibition activity predicted by computer program PASS taking into account the best features of available NNRTIs as well as against SARS-COV-2 main protease. Seven compounds showed good anti-HIV inhibitory activity, with two of them, C1 and C2 being better (IC50 0.18 μΜ & 0.12 μΜ respectively) than the reference drug nevirapine (IC50 0.31 μΜ). The evaluation of molecules to inhibit the main protease revealed that 6 of the synthesized compounds exhibited excellent to moderate activity with two of them (B4 and B10) having better IC50 values (0.15 & 0.19 μΜ respectively) than the reference inhibitor GC376 (IC50 0.439 μΜ). The docking studies is coincides with experimental results, showing good binding mode to both enzymes.

No published information is available on the use of delavirdine during breastfeeding. In the US and other countries where access to clean water and affordable replacement feeding are available, it is recommended that mothers living with HIV not breastfeed their infants to avoid postnatal transmission of HIV-1 infection. Delavirdine is not recommended during breastfeeding.[1,2]

The dengue virus (DENV) infects approximately 400 million people annually worldwide causing significant morbidity and mortality. Despite advances in understanding the virus life cycle and infectivity, no specific treatment for this disease exists due to the lack of therapeutic drugs. In addition, vaccines available currently are ineffective with severe side effects. Therefore, there is an urgent need for developing therapeutics suitable for effective management of DENV infection. In this study, we adopted a drug repurposing strategy to identify new therapeutic use of existing FDA approved drug molecules to target DENV2 non-structural proteins NS3 and NS5 using computational approaches. We used Drugbank database molecules for virtual screening and multiple docking analysis against a total of four domains, the NS3 protease and helicase domains and NS5 MTase and RdRp domains. Subsequently, MD simulations and MM-PBSA analysis were performed to validate the intrinsic atomic interactions and the binding affinities. Furthermore, the internal dynamics in all four protein domains, in presence of drug molecule binding were assessed using essential dynamics and free energy landscape analyses, which were further coupled with conformational dynamics-based clustering studies and cross-correlation analysis to map the regions that exhibit these structural variations. Our comprehensive analysis identified tolcapone, cefprozil, delavirdine and indinavir as potential inhibitors of NS5 MTase, NS5 RdRp, NS3 protease and NS3 helicase functions, respectively. These high-confidence candidate molecules will be useful for developing effective anti-DENV therapy to combat dengue infection.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a lethal disease that is prevalent worldwide. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) data, 38.4 million people worldwide were living with HIV in 2021. Viral reverse transcriptase (RT) is an excellent target for drug intervention. Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) were the first class of approved antiretroviral drugs. Later, a new type of non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) were approved as anti-HIV drugs. Zidovudine, didanosine, and stavudine are FDA-approved NRTIs, while nevirapine, efavirenz, and delavirdine are FDA-approved NNRTIs. Several agents are in clinical trials, including apricitabine, racivir, elvucitabine, doravirine, dapivirine, and elsulfavirine. This review addresses HIV-1 structure, replication cycle, reverse transcription, and HIV drug targets. This study focuses on NRTIs and NNRTIs, their binding sites, mechanisms of action, FDA-approved drugs and drugs in clinical trials, their resistance and adverse effects, their molecular docking studies, and highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).

The hybrids of delavirdine and piperdin-4-yl-aminopyrimidine (DPAPYs) were designed from two excellent HIV-1 NNRTIs delavirdine and piperidin-4-yl-aminopyrimidine via molecular hybridization. The target compounds 4a-r were prepared and evaluated for their cellular anti-HIV activities and cytotoxicities as well as the inhibitory activities against HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT). All the newly synthesized compounds demonstrated moderate to excellent potency against wild-type (WT) HIV-1 with EC50 values in a range of 5.7 to 0.0086 μM and against RT with IC50 values ranging from 12.0 to 0.11 μM, indicating that the DPAPYs were specific RT inhibitors. Among all, 4d displayed the most potent activity against WT HIV-1 (EC50 = 8.6 nM, SI = 2151). Gratifyingly, it exhibited good to excellent potency against the single HIV-1 mutants L100I, K103N, Y181C, Y188L, E138K, as well as the double mutant F227L + V106A. Furthermore, the preliminary structure-activity relationships were summarized, molecular modeling was conducted to explore the binding mode of DPAPYs and HIV-1 RT, and their physicochemical properties were also predicted.

The antivirals are a large and diverse group of agents that are typically classified by the virus infections for which they are used, their chemical structure and their mode of action. Most antiviral agents have been developed in the last 20 to 25 years, many as a result of the major research efforts to develop therapies and means of prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Some of the agents developed to treat HIV infection, AIDS and its complications were found to also inhibit other viruses, and the novel approaches taken in development of antiretroviral therapy have been applied to develop therapies of other viral infections. Antiretroviral Agents for HIV Infection. The antiretroviral agents include nucleoside analogues with reverse transcriptase activity (such as tenofovir, emtricitabine, lamivudine, abacavir, stavudine, didanosine, zidovudine), the nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (such as delavirdine, efavirenz, etravirine, nevirapine and rilpivirine), protease inhibitors (atazanavir, darunavir, indinavir, ritonavir, tipranavir and many others), and miscellaneous agents such as maraviroc that inhibits binding of the HIV virus its T cell receptor (CCR5 coreceptor antagonist), enfuvirtide that blocks the uptake of HIV into cells (fusion inhibitor), and integrase inhibitors (raltegravir, elvitegravir and dolutegravir) that block the integrase enzyme of HIV. Hepatitis B Agents. The agents active against hepatitis B virus (HBV) include several nucleoside analogues that are also active against and used to treat HIV infection (tenofovir, emtricitabine, lamivudine), as well as agents that are poorly if at all active against HIV (adefovir, entecavir and telbivudine). Alpha interferon and peginterferon (its long acting pegylated form) are also active against hepatitis B, but are no longer commonly used for this indication.

A series of quinoline derivatives has been designed, synthesized and screened for their anti-HIV properties. The drug-like properties of compounds were evaluated first and then molecular docking using DS v20.1.0.19295 software showed that the compounds behaved as non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) while interacting at the allosteric site of target HIV-RT protein (PDB:3MEC). The docking results revealed that all compounds formed hydrogen bonds with Lys101, Lys103, Val179, Tyr188, Gln190, Gly190, Pro225, Phe227, and Tyr318, and showed π-interaction with Tyr188 and Tyr318. TOPKAT (Toxicity Prediction by Komputer Assisted Technology) results confirmed that the compounds were found to be less toxic than the reference drugs. Density functional theory (DFT) analysis was performed to assess the binding affinity of all compounds. Further, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed on compound 6 and delavirdine with HIV-RT enzyme. Comprehensive MD analyses showed a similar pattern of conformational stability and flexibility in both the complexes suggesting alike inhibitory action. The hydrogen-bonding interactions and the binding energy of active-site residues for the compound 6 complex revealed strong inhibitory activity than the reference (delavirdine) complex. Thus, the compound 6 might act as a potential inhibitor against HIV-RT. Overall, this study revealed that compound 6 (5-hydroxy-N-(4-methyl-2-oxo-1,2-dihydroquinolin-8-yl) thiophene-2-sulfonamide) has prudent anti-HIV activity against both HIV-1 (SI = 2.65) and HIV-2 (SI = 2.32) that can further be utilised in drug discovery against HIV virus.

We aimed to develop a physiological-based pharmacokinetic and dipepidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) occupancy model (PBPK-DO) characterized by two simultaneous simulations to predict pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic changes of saxagliptin and metabolite M2 in humans when coadministered with CYP3A4 inhibitors or inducers. Ketoconazole, delavirdine, and rifampicin were selected as a CYP3A4 competitive inhibitor, a time-dependent inhibitor, and an inducer, respectively. Here, we have successfully simulated PK profiles and DPP-4 occupancy profiles of saxagliptin in humans using the PBPK-DO model. Additionally, under the circumstance of actually measured values, predicted results were good and in line with observations, and all fold errors were below 2. The prediction results demonstrated that the oral dose of saxagliptin should be reduced to 2.5 mg when coadministrated with ketoconazole. The predictions also showed that although PK profiles of saxagliptin showed significant changes with delavirdine (AUC 1.5-fold increase) or rifampicin (AUC: a decrease to 0.19-fold) compared to those without inhibitors or inducers, occupancies of DPP-4 by saxagliptin were nearly unchanged, that is, the administration dose of saxagliptin need not adjust when there is coadministration with delavirdine or rifampicin.

Pyridine-based ring systems are one of the most extensively used heterocycles in the field of drug design, primarily due to their profound effect on pharmacological activity, which has led to the discovery of numerous broad-spectrum therapeutic agents. In the US FDA database, there are 95 approved pharmaceuticals that stem from pyridine or dihydropyridine, including isoniazid and ethionamide (tuberculosis), delavirdine (HIV/AIDS), abiraterone acetate (prostate cancer), tacrine (Alzheimer's), ciclopirox (ringworm and athlete's foot), crizotinib (cancer), nifedipine (Raynaud's syndrome and premature birth), piroxicam (NSAID for arthritis), nilvadipine (hypertension), roflumilast (COPD), pyridostigmine (myasthenia gravis), and many more. Their remarkable therapeutic applications have encouraged researchers to prepare a larger number of biologically active compounds decorated with pyridine or dihydropyridine, expandeing the scope of finding a cure for other ailments. It is thus anticipated that myriad new pharmaceuticals containing the two heterocycles will be available in the forthcoming decade. This review examines the prospects of highly potent bioactive molecules to emphasize the advantages of using pyridine and dihydropyridine in drug design. We cover the most recent developments from 2010 to date, highlighting the ever-expanding role of both scaffolds in the field of medicinal chemistry and drug development.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is one of the leading causes of human deaths. The advent of different anti-HIV drugs has turned AIDS/HIV from a deadly infection to chronic and manageable disease. However, the development of multidrug-resistant viruses, along with the severe side effects of anti-HIV agents, has compromised their efficacy and limited the treatment options. Indoles, the most common frameworks in the bioactive molecules, represent attractive scaffolds for designing and developing novel drugs. Indole derivatives are potent inhibitors of HIV enzymes such as reverse transcriptase, integrase, and protease. Furthermore, some indole-based agents, like delavirdine, have already been applied in clinics or are under clinical evaluations for the treatment of AIDS/HIV, revealing that indole moiety is a useful template for the development of anti-HIV agents. This review focuses on the recent advancement in indole derivatives, including indole alkaloids, hybrids, and dimers with anti-HIV potential, covering articles published between 2010 and 2020. The chemical structures, structure-activity relationship, and mechanisms of action are also discussed.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the primary infectious agent of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) are the cornerstone of HIV treatment. In the last 20 years, our medicinal chemistry group has made great strides in developing several distinct novel NNRTIs, including 1-[(2-hydroxyethoxy)methyl]-6-(phenylthio)thymine (HEPT), thio-dihydro-alkoxy-benzyl-oxopyrimidine (S-DABO), diaryltriazine (DATA), diarylpyrimidine (DAPY) analogues, and their hybrid derivatives. Application of integrated modern medicinal strategies, including structure-based drug design, fragment-based optimization, scaffold/fragment hopping, molecular/fragment hybridization, and bioisosterism, led to the development of several highly potent analogues for further evaluations. In this paper, we review the development of NNRTIs in the last two decades using the above optimization strategies, including their structure-activity relationships, molecular modeling, and their binding modes with HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT). Future directions and perspectives on the design and associated challenges are also discussed.