Chikungunya virus drug discovery: still a long way to go?
María-Jesús Pérez-Pérez ORCID Icon, Leen Delang ORCID Icon, Lisa F. P. Ng ORCID Icon & Eva-María Priego ORCID Icon
Received 25 Feb 2019, Accepted 05 Jun 2019, Accepted author version posted online: 10 Jun 2019, Published online: 14 Jun 2019
Download citation  https://doi.org/10.1080/17460441.2019.1629413 

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ABSTRACT
Introduction: Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is the etiological agent of a (re)emerging arbovirus infection, chikungunya fever (CHIKF), that represents a serious health problem worldwide for which no antivirals are available.

Areas covered: This review covers the efforts performed so far to identify and optimize small molecules that could be useful as antivirals for CHIKV infection, including drug repositioning, phenotypic screening, target-based screening, and structure-based design. This is accompanied by a brief presentation of the replicative cycle of the virus and the role of the viral proteins in CHIKV replication.

Expert opinion: In the last decade, and particularly since CHIKV reached the Americas, significant efforts have been made to identify compounds that effectively inhibit CHIKV replication. Unfortunately, these efforts have not led to a clinical candidate. For the years to come, more basic research is required to allow a better understanding of the interplay of the viral proteins among them and with cellular components. Structural information is missing for most of the targets so that structure-based drug design, a strategy that has provided good results in other antiviral fields, has been scarcely applied to this alphavirus.

KEYWORDS: Chikungunya virus, drug repurposing, phenotypic screening, structure-based drug design, target-based assays