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Updated: Dec 25, 2025
RNA Interference in Ticks
Published on: January 20, 2011
Simplistic perylene-related compounds as inhibitors of tick-borne encephalitis virus reproduction
Nikita A Slesarchuk1, Evgeny V Khvatov2, Alexey A Chistov3
1Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry RAS, Moscow 117997, Russia; Department of Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia; Department of Biology and Biotechnology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow 117312, Russia.
Abstract:
Rigid amphipathic fusion inhibitors are potent broad-spectrum antivirals based on the perylene scaffold, usually decorated with a hydrophilic group linked via ethynyl or triazole. We have sequentially simplified these structures by removing sugar moiety, then converting uridine to aniline, then moving to perylenylthiophenecarboxylic acids and to perylenylcarboxylic acid. All these polyaromatic compounds, as well as antibiotic heliomycin, still showed pronounced activity against tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) with limited toxicity in porcine embryo kidney (PEK) cell line. 5-(Perylen-3-yl)-2-thiophenecarboxylic acid (5a) showed the highest antiviral activity with 50% effective concentration of approx. 1.6 nM.
