GS-9190 (Tegobuvir) is a novel imidazopyridine inhibitor of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA replication in vitroand has demonstrated potent antiviral activity in patients chronically infected with genotype 1 (GT1) HCV. GS-9190 exhibits reduced activity against GT2a (JFH1) subgenomic replicons and GT2a (J6/JFH1) infectious virus, suggesting that the compound's mechanism of action involves a genotype-specific viral component. To further investigate the GS-9190 mechanism of action, we utilized the susceptibility differences between GT1b and GT2a by constructing a series of replicon chimeras where combinations of 1b and 2a nonstructural proteins were encoded within the same replicon. The antiviral activities of GS-9190 against the chimeric replicons were reduced to levels comparable to that of the wild-type GT2a replicon in chimeras expressing GT2a NS5B. GT1b replicons in which the ␤-hairpin region (amino acids 435 to 455) was replaced by the corresponding sequence of GT2a were markedly less susceptible to GS-9190, indicating the importance of the thumb subdomain of the polymerase in this effect. Resistance selection in GT1b replicon cells identified several mutations in NS5B (C316Y, Y448H, Y452H, and C445F) that contributed to the drug resistance phenotype. Reintroduction of these mutations into wild-type replicons conferred resistance to GS-9190, with the number of NS5B mutations correlating with the degree of resistance. Analysis of GS-9190 cross-resistance against previously reported NS5B drug-selected mutations showed that the resistance pattern of GS-9190 is different from other nonnucleoside inhibitors. Collectively, these data demonstrate that GS-9190 represents a novel class of nonnucleoside polymerase inhibitors that interact with NS5B likely through involvement of the ␤-hairpin in the thumb subdomain.Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of morbidity, affecting approximately 170 million people worldwide with an estimated 3 to 4 million additional new infections occurring each year (36). HCV is a positive-strand RNA virus with six major genotypes that are further divided into multiple subtypes. Due to the error-prone nature of its replication enzyme, a myriad of different viral quasispecies exists within an infected individual (32). With this high degree of viral variability, the current treatment regimen, which consists of weekly injections of pegylated alpha interferon (PEG-IFN) and twice-daily oral doses of ribavirin (RBV), is of limited efficacy and, in addition, carries significant side effects (8, 23). Although the HCV NS3/4A protease inhibitors telaprevir and boceprevir for treatment of chronic HCV infection will soon be available, these compounds will still need to be combined with the current standard of care (PEG-IFN/RBV) to be efficacious and will not cure all infected individuals (10,14,30). Therefore, the development of additional direct antiviral agents with diverse resistance profiles is necessary, with the ultimate goal of developing all-oral antiviral combinations that can achieve superior ...

No abstract

No abstract

Bacterial protein synthesis is the target for several classes of established antibiotics. This report describes the characterization of a novel translation inhibitor produced by the soil bacterium Flexibacter. The dipeptide antibiotic TAN1057 A/B was synthesized and designated GS7128. As reported previously, TAN1057 inhibits protein synthesis in both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, leaving transcription unaffected. Cell-free translation systems from E. coli were used to further dissect the mechanism of translational inhibition. Binding of mRNA to ribosomes was unaffected by the drug, whereas the initiation reaction was reduced. Elongation of translation was completely inhibited by GS7128. Detailed analysis showed that the peptidyl transferase reaction was strongly inhibited, whereas tRNA binding to both A- and P-site was unaffected. Selection and analysis of drug-resistant mutants of S. aureus suggests that drug uptake may be mediated by a dipeptide transport mechanism.

Treatment of patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) with direct acting antivirals can lead to the emergence of drug-resistant variants that may pose a long-term threat to viral eradication. HCV replicons have been used to select resistance mutations; however, genotype 2a JFH-1-based viruses provide the opportunity to perform resistance selection in a bona fide infection system. In this study, we used a tissue culture-adapted J6/JFH-1 virus to select resistance to the NS3 protease inhibitors BILN-2061 and VX-950. Lunet-CD81 cells were infected with J6/JFH-1 virus and maintained in the presence of inhibitors until high-titer viral supernatant was produced. Viral supernatants were passaged over naive cells at escalating drug concentrations, and the resulting viruses were then characterized. Three NS3 resistance mutations were identified in BILN-2061-resistant viruses: A156G, D168A, and D168V. Interestingly, D168A, D168V, and A156T/V, but not A156G, were selected in parallel using a genotype 2a replicon. For VX-950, the T54A and A156S NS3 resistance mutations were identified in the virus selections, whereas only A156T/V emerged in genotype 2a replicon selections. Of note, VX-950 resistance mutations selected using the 2a virus (T54A and A156S) were also observed during VX-950 clinical studies in genotype 2 patients. We also performed viral fitness evaluations and determined that the mutations selected in the viral system did not confer marked reductions in virus production kinetics or peak titers. Overall, the HCV infection system is an efficient tool for drug resistance selections and has advantages for the rapid identification and characterization of clinically relevant resistance mutations.Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection represents a significant and immediate worldwide health burden (2, 40). Accordingly, tremendous resources have been directed toward discovering and developing novel therapies to treat HCV infection. Currently, a number of direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs) are under clinical development (7,35,37). Various DAAs have been designed to target distinct HCV viral proteins (3, 4, 6), including NS3 protease, NS5A, and the NS5B RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. During short-term monotherapy studies in HCV-infected patients, many of these DAAs have elicited pronounced antiviral effects (e.g., Ն3 log HCV viral load reductions in as few as 3 days of treatment). However, even in these short-term studies the selection of viral resistance was apparent and thus poses a significant challenge to the long-term efficacy of these novel agents (6,11,32,35).The HCV replicon has been a useful in vitro tool for identifying and characterizing resistance mutations for multiple classes of DAAs (11,32,35). For example, the NS3 mutations R155K, A156T/V, and D168A/V were selected in replicons using the first clinically active NS3 protease inhibitor, BILN-2061 (a prototype noncovalent NS3 inhibitor) (16,19). Unfortunately, the resistance profile of BILN-2061 in the clinic has not been reported, making it imposs...

No abstract

A novel series of HCV replication inhibitors based on a pyrido[3,2-d]pyrimidine core were optimized for pharmacokinetics (PK) in rats. Several associations between physicochemical properties and PK were identified and exploited to guide the design of compounds. In addition, a simple new metric that may aid in the prediction of bioavailability for compounds with higher polar surface area is described (3*HBD-cLogP).

A series of sugar-modified derivatives of cytostatic 7-heteroaryl-7-deazaadenosines (2'-deoxy-2'-fluororibo- and 2'-deoxy-2',2'-difluororibonucleosides) bearing an aryl or heteroaryl group at position 7 was prepared and screened for biological activity. The difluororibonucleosides were prepared by non- stereoselective glycosidation of 6-chloro-7-deazapurine with benzoyl-protected 2-deoxy-2,2-difluoro-D-erythro-pentofuranosyl-1-mesylate, followed by amination and aqueous Suzuki cross-couplings with (het)arylboronic acids. The fluororibo derivatives were prepared by aqueous palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of the corresponding 7-iodo-7-deazaadenine 2'-deoxy-2'-fluororibonucleoside 20 with (het)arylboronic acids. The key intermediate 20 was prepared by a six-step sequence from the corresponding arabinonucleoside by selective protection of 3'- and 5'-hydroxy groups with acid-labile groups, followed by stereoselective SN 2 fluorination and deprotection. Some of the title nucleosides and 7-iodo-7-deazaadenine intermediates showed micromolar cytostatic or anti-HCV activity. The most active were 7-iodo and 7-ethynyl derivatives. The corresponding 2'-deoxy-2',2'-difluororibonucleoside 5'-O-triphosphates were found to be good substrates for bacterial DNA polymerases, but are inhibitors of human polymerase α.