Design and synthesis of cinanserin analogs as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 3CL protease inhibitors

The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus 3CL protease is an attractive target for the development of anti-SARS drugs. In this paper, cinanserin (1) analogs were synthesized and tested for the in-hibitory activities against SARS-coronavirus (CoV) 3CL protease by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) assay. Four analogs show significant activities, especially compound 26 with an IC50 of 1.06 mu M.