Researchers from the University of Barcelona (UB), the Institute of Biomedicine of UB (IBUB) and the Scientific and Technological Centers of UB (CCiTUB), have synthetized some molecules which are able to block the virus that causes influenza A and some of the mutations that make it resistant to common drugs. The team led by Santiago Vázquez, researcher at the Pharmaceutical Chemistry Lab, and the team headed by F. Javier Luque, from the Department of Physicochemistry, both from the Faculty of Pharmacy and the IBUB participated in the study, published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (doi: 10.1021/jm5005804) of the American Chemical Society.

”

The study of these anti-viral molecules emerged from the research developed by Matías Rey Carrizo anad Marta Barniol Xicota, PhD students at UB and members of the group led by Sangiago Vázquez. The study was published on the prestigious scientific journal Angewandte Chemie (doi: 10.1002/ange.201403985).

Researchers have developed a compound that has an uncommon structure with four cyclohexane rings shaping a “boat”, instead of the common “chair” shape. According to Santiago Vázquez, “the ‘boat’ shape has much more energy and belongs to a transition status”. “To achieve it —he adds—we used a hydrocarbon that includes a carbon-carbon bond which, contrary to what it could be thought, it is extremely tense but not plain”. The structure of this compound was determined by Mercè Font-Bardia, from the X-Ray Diffraction Unit of the Scientific and Technological Centers of UB (CCiTUB), who also signs the scientific paper.

Results are very interesting from a theoretical point of view. Moreover, the team led by Santiago Vázquez has adequately modified the polycyclic structure to prepare compounds with high antiviral activity (to be exact, against the drug-resistant mutants of influenza A virus).

The teams led by Lieve Naesens (Rega Institute, Leuven, Belgium), Robert A. Lamb and Lawrence H. Pinto (Northwestern University, Illinois, USA) and William F. DeGrado (University of California, San Francisco, USA) collaborated in the study too.The international collaboration that has achieved to synthetize these new compounds will continue in order to design synthetize and evaluate in a pharmacological sense new active compounds against other virus strains.

The research has just received the support given by a PRACE project. That means it will have access to the supercomputing resources given by the supercomputer Marenostrum in the Barcelona Supercomputer Center (BSC). Furthermore, results may encourage other research groups to use the M2 channel of influenza virus as therapeutic target against the influenza A virus.

For further information [+]