Publication

Abstract : Japanese encephalitis virus is a mosquito-borne virus, which causes encephalitis primarily in children and is a major cause of encephalitis-related deaths in South and South-East Asian countries. Although new and safe vaccines are available for use, it is neither affordable nor readily available in endemic regions. Currently there are no antivirals for JEV treatment and developing new drugs against JEV is the need of the hour. In this study we used the backbone of the naturally occurring lupin alkaloid, sparteine to synthesize derivatives containing amino acid residues. We found that the conjugate consisting of the hydrophobic amino acid tryptophan, Bisp-W, inhibited virus replication in cell culture studies. We show that Bisp-W inhibits virus infection at a stage post-entry and at the level of viral RNA replication suggesting that this compound could serve as a potential therapeutic option for treating JEV infection. We believe that the chemical scaffold identified in this study could serve as a platform for synthesizing more potent antivirals that could be used to treat viral encephalitis.