Design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel 4-amino-2-(4-benzylpiperazin-1-yl)methylbenzonitrile compounds as Zika inhibitors

The prevalence of Zika virus (ZIKV) has become widespread in recent years. ZIKV infection is associated with severe congenital CNS malformations in both newborns and adults. However, neither vaccines nor therapeutics are available to control ZIKV infection until now. We started by hit screening our in-house small molecule library, then designed, synthesized, and evaluated a new class of 1, 4-bibenzylsubstituted piperazine derivatives for their cytopathic effect (CPE) protection effect in a ZIKV-infected Vero E6 cellular assay. A preliminary structure-activity relationship study identified five novel 4-amino-2-(4-benzylpiperazin-1-yl)methylbenzonitrile analogs with obvious CPE reduction effects against ZIKV at micromolar concentrations. Moreover, compound 3p exerted a significant antiviral effect on both Zika RNA replication and virus protein expression in a dose-dependent manner at low micromolar concentrations. This study demonstrated the potential of a novel 4-amino-2-(4-benzylpiperazin-1-yl)methylbenzonitrile scaffold for the development of anti-ZIKV candidates.