Zhao-Hui Wen, Meng-Meng Wang, Ling-Yun Li, Piet Herdewijn, Robert Snoeck, Graciela Andrei, Zhao-Peng Liu, Chao Liu. Synthesis and anti-SARS-CoV-2 evaluation of lipid prodrugs of β-D-
N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC) and a 3′-fluoro-substituted analogue of NHC.
Bioorg Chem 2023;
135. [PMID:
37031504 PMCID:
PMC10076076 DOI:
10.1016/j.bioorg.2023.106527]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2023] [Revised: 03/12/2023] [Accepted: 04/03/2023] [Indexed: 04/08/2023]
Abstract
β-D-N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC, EIDD-1931) is a nucleoside analogue that exhibits broad spectrum antiviral activity against a variety of RNA viruses. Herein, we report the synthesis of a series of lipid prodrugs of NHC and a novel 3′-fluoro modified NHC analogue, and evaluation of their antiviral activity against five variants of SARS-CoV-2. All lipid prodrugs showed potent antiviral activity against the tested SARS-CoV-2 variants with EC50 values in the range of 0.31–3.51 μM, which were comparable to those of NHC or higher than those of remdesivir and molnupiravir. An increase in the cytostatic activity of the lipid prodrugs was found, but prodrug 2d proved equally selective as molnupinavir. The 3′-F analogue of NHC (6) only displayed minor antiviral activity against the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (EC50 = 29.91 μM), while no activity was found for other variants at the highest concentration tested. The promising antiviral data of the lipid prodrugs of NHC suggest that they deserve further investigation as new anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs.
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