Advances in the Development of Non-Structural Protein 1 (NsP1) Inhibitors for the Treatment of Chikungunya Virus Infection

Chikungunya is a re-emerging viral infection of worldwide concern, and new antiviral therapeutics are necessary to combat this disease. Inhibitors of the non-structural protein 1 (NsP1), which shows Methyltransferase (MTase) activity and plays a crucial in the Chikungunya virus (ChikV) replication, are exhibiting promising results. This review aimed to describe recent advances in the development of NsP1 inhibitors for the treatment of Chikungunya disease. High-throughput screening of novel ChikV NsP1 inhibitors has been widely performed for the identification of new molecule hits through fluorescence polarization, Western blotting, ELISA-based assay, and capillary electrophoresis assays. Additionally, cell-based assays confirmed that the inhibition of ChikV NsP1 abolishes viral replication. In summary, pyrimidine and pyrimidin-7(6H)-one derivatives, GTP and nucleoside analogs have been demonstrated to show inhibitory activity and are considered promising scaffolds that provide useful knowledge for the research and development of new NsP1 inhibitors as potential treatment of Chikungunya re-emerging disease.