Title

Simian Virus 40 Large T Antigen as a Model to Test the Efficacy of Flouroquinolones against Viral Helicases

Authors

Sammer Siddiqui¹, Muhammad F. Anwar², Sadaf Naeem³, Syed Hani Abidi⁴, Shamshad Zarina², Syed Ali^5,6

Affiliation

¹Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA;

²National Center Proteomics, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan;

³Department of Biochemistry, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan;

⁴Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan;

⁵Department of Pathology, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan;

⁶Department of Biological Sciences, Nazarbayev School of Medicine, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan;

Email

syed.ali@nu.edu.kz;

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received February 21, 2018; Revised February 24, 2018; Accepted February 24, 2018; Published February 28, 2018

Simian virus 40 large T-antigen (SV40 LT-Ag) is a 708 amino acid nuclear phosphoprotein. Among many functions of LT-Ag is its ability to perform as an ATPase-helicase, catalyzing the unwinding of viral genome during replication. The LT-Ag has been employed in the studies of helicase structure and function, and has served as a model helicase for the screening of antiviral drugs that target viral helicase. In this study, using in vitro enzyme assays and in silico computer modeling, we screened a batch of 18 fluoroquinolones to assess their potential as antivirals by virtue of their inhibition of the LT-Ag helicase. We found all fluoroquinolones to be inhibitory to the helicase activity of LT-Ag. In our docking analysis, most of these tested drugs showed similarity in their interactions with LT-Ag. Our study shows the potential of fluoroquinolones as antiviral drugs and of SV40 LT-Ag as a model protein for screening drugs against viral helicases.

Keywords

SV40 LT-Ag, Fluoroquinolones, Antiviral drugs

Citation

Siddiqui et al. Bioinformation 14(2): 75-79 (2018)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.