Identification of novel Zika virus inhibitors: a screening using thiosemicarbazones and thiazoles templates



Zika virus (ZIKV) remains an important cause of congenital infection, fetal microcephaly, and Guillain-Barré syndrome in the population. In 2016, WHO declared a cluster of microcephaly cases and other neurological disorders reported as a global public health emergency in Brazil. There is still no specific treatment for Zika virus fever, only palliative care. Therefore, there is a need for new therapies against this disease. According to the literature, thiosemicarbazone, phthalimide and thiazole are privileged structures with several biological activities, including antiviral activity against various viruses.



Based on this, this work presents an antiviral screening using previously synthesized compounds derived from thiosemicarbazone, phthalimide, and thiazole as new hits active against ZIKV.



After synthesis and characterization, all compounds were submitted to Cytotoxicity by MTT and Antiviral activity against ZIKV assays.



Compounds 63, 64, 65, and 73 exhibited major reductions in the ZIKV title from this evaluation. Compounds 63 (99.74%), 64 (99.77%), 65 (99.92%), and 73 (99.21%) showed a higher inhibition than the standard 6MMPr (98.74%) at the CC20 dose. These results revealed new chemical entities with anti-ZIKV activity.



These derivatives are promising candidates for further assays. In addition, the current approach brings a new privileged scaffolding, which may drive future drug discovery for ZIKV.
