Novel agmatine dipeptide inhibitors against the West Nile virus NS2B/NS3 protease: a P3 and N-cap optimization study

This communication describes the synthesis and inhibitory activities of thirty-seven novel C-terminal agmatine dipeptides used as screening compounds to study the structure-activity relationship between active-site peptidomimetics and the West Nile virus (WNV) NS2B/NS3 serine protease. Our efforts lead to the discovery of a novel agmatine dipeptide inhibitor (compound 33, IC50 2.6 ± 0.3 μM) with improved inhibitory activity in comparison to the most potent inhibitor described in our recent report [IC50 4.7 ± 1.2 μM; Lim et al., Eur. J. Med. Chem. 46 (2011) 3130-3134]. In addition, our study cleared the contention surrounding the previous X-ray co-crystallization study and an enzyme inhibition report on the binding conformation adopted by active-site peptide aldehydes. Our data should provide valuable insights into the design of future peptidomimetic antivirals against WNV infections.