title: Computer-aided drug design methodologies toward the design of anti-hepatitis C agents.
abstract: Hepatitis C constitutes an infectious disease that causes severe damages to the liver, and is caused by hepatitis C virus. There is no vaccine against this type of disease and the number of people infected continues to grow worldwide. The anti-viral therapy which is currently used is a mixture of interferon alpha-2a with ribavirin, but approximately half of the patients do not respond to therapy. Therefore, it is necessary to search for new compounds with anti-hepatitis C activity. Computer-aided drug design methodologies have been vital in the discovery of candidates to drugs. This review is dedicated to the role of computer-aided drug design methodologies for the development of new anti-hepatitis C agents. In addition, we introduce a QSAR model based on substructural approaches in order to model the anti-hepatitis C activity in vivo.
authors.affiliation: REQUIMTE/Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Porto, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal. alejspivanovich@gmail.com
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Speck-Planche
authors.forename: M Natália D S
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Cordeiro
mesh_terms: D000998:Antiviral Agents / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D015195:Drug Design; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000187:drug effects*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D021281:Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D000998:Antiviral Agents