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Updated: Oct 29, 2025

Early Viral Entry Assays for the Identification and Evaluation of Antiviral Compounds
Published on: October 29, 2015
Covalent Antiviral Agents
Sako Mirzaie1, Fatemeh Abdi2, Amin GhavamiNejad2
1Advanced Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery Laboratory, Leslie L. Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. s.mirzaie@utoronto.ca.
Abstract:
Nowadays, many viral infections have emerged and are taking a huge toll on human lives globally. Meanwhile, viral resistance to current drugs has drastically increased. Hence, there is a pressing need to design potent broad-spectrum antiviral agents to treat a variety of viral infections and overcome viral resistance. Covalent inhibitors have the potential to achieve both goals owing to their biochemical efficiency, prolonged duration of action, and the capability to inhibit shallow, solvent-exposed substrate-binding domains. In this chapter, we review the structures, activities, and inhibition mechanisms of covalent inhibitors against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, dengue virus, enterovirus, hepatitis C virus, human immunodeficiency virus, and influenza viruses. We also discuss the application of in silico study in covalent inhibitor design.
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