Progress and prospects on DENV protease inhibitors

New treatments are desperately required to combat increasing rate of dengue fever cases reported in tropical and sub-tropical parts of the world. Among the ten proteins (structural and non-structural) encoded by dengue viral genome, NS2B-NS3 protease is an ideal target for drug discovery. It is responsible for the processing of poly protein that is required for genome replication of the virus. Moreover, inhibitors designed against proteases were found successful in Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). Complete molecular mechanism and a survey of inhibitors reported against dengue protease will be helpful in designing effective and potent inhibitors. This review provides an insight on molecular mechanism of dengue virus protease and covers up-to-date information on different inhibitors reported against dengue proteases with medicinal chemistry perspective. (C) 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.