Enterovirus Inhibition by Hinged Aromatic Compounds with Polynuclei

Hwu, Jih Ru; Panja, Avijit; Jayakumar, Srinivasan; Tsay, Shwu-Chen; Tan, Kui-Thong; Huang, Wen-Chieh; Hu, Yu-Chen; Leyssen, Pieter; Neyts, Johan

The modern world has no available drugs for the treatment of enteroviruses (EV), which affect millions of people worldwide each year. The EV71 is a major causative disease for hand, foot, and mouth disease; sometimes it is associated with severe central nervous system diseases. Treatment for enteroviral infection is mainly supportive; treatment for aseptic meningitis caused by enteroviruses is also generally symptomatic. Upon the urgent request of new anti-enterovirus drugs, a series of hinged aromatic compounds with polynulei were synthesized through two different chemical pathways. Among these morpholine–furan/thiophene/pyrrole–benzene–pyrazole conjugates, three new agents exhibited inhibitory activity with EC(50) = 2.29–6.16 μM toward EV71 strain BrCr in RD cells. Their selectivity index values were reached as high as 33.4. Their structure–activity relationship was deduced that a thiophene derivative with morpholine and trifluorobenzene rings showed the greatest antiviral activity, with EC(50) = 2.29 μM.