Application of Bioinformatics for the search of novel anti-viral therapies: Rational design of anti-herpes agents

摘要

Human herpes viruses (HHV) are leading cause of human viral diseases, second after influenza and cold viruses. They cause overt disease or can remain silent for many years waiting for reactivation. HHV are associated to several side-effects or co-conditions like Alzheimer's disease, cholangiocarcinoma and pancreatic cancer, and with the time, they have become resistant to the available commercial drugs like acyclovir, whose final target is the DNApolymerase. For this reason there is an increasing interest for the search of novel compounds against herpes viruses. In this sense, Bioinformatics is determinant for a better understanding of the mechanisms of resistance, and also for the search of new biomolecular targets for the design of more potent and versatile anti-herpes agents. This review is focused on the role of Bioinformatics toward the design of compounds with anti-herpetic activity and also we propose a model based fragment descriptors for the design, search and prediction of anti-herpes compounds through the inhibition of 5 targets belonging to different herpes viruses.