Publication date: Jan 16, 2025

The global impact of SARS-CoV-2 highlights the need for treatments beyond vaccination, given the limited availability of effective medications. While Pfizer introduced Paxlovid, an FDA-approved antiviral targeting the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro), this study focuses on designing new antivirals against another protease, papain-like protease (PLpro), which is crucial for viral replication and immune suppression. NCATS/NIH performed a high-throughput screen of ∼15,000 molecules from an internal molecular library, identifying initial hits with a 0. 5% success rate. To improve the hit rate and identify potent inhibitors, machine learning-based virtual screens were applied to ∼150,000 compounds, yielding 125 top predicted hits. Biochemical evaluation revealed 25 promising compounds, with a 20% hit-rate and IC values from 1. 75 μM to

Semantics

Original Article