Discovery of a series of novel compounds with moderate anti-avian H5N1 influenza virus activity in chick embryo

Enlightened by some flavonoid compounds, which had been found as influenza neuraminidase inhibitors, we designed and synthesized a series of novel compounds containing different amino acid fragments. We also reported a simple synthetic route from oseltamivir to prepare its active form which was used as the positive control. The result of enzyme inhibition assay indicated that all the designed compounds displayed weak inhibitory activity against neuraminidase. However, they showed moderate anti-avian H5N1 influenza virus activity in chick embryo. Besides interfering with the function of neuraminidase, these compounds seemed to inhibit the replication of influenza virus by some other mechanism which deserved deep study.