The Zika virus (ZIKV) arrival in Brazilian territory brought to light the need for preparedness regarding arboviruses in Brazil. Compound screening is a cumbersome process dependent upon in vitro testing and validation. Recently, virtual screening methods have improved precision and reliability providing a framework for in silico testing of lead compound candidates. Here we have applied these methods on compounds that were previously shown to be active against Dengue virus in vitro, taking the structural information of such compounds and applying docking methods to identify putative binding sites. A molecular dynamics approach was also used to refine the docking results. The computational experiments ran here suggests that compounds such as Epigallocatechin Gallate, Ergotamine and Avermectin-B1a bind to active sites on the viral enzymes NS5 and NS3, as well as on its Envelope protein. Refinement shows that such bindings were not lost during the production run and key regions on both enzymes were structurally displaced on average over the simulation time. Interestingly there is no documented drug interactions among these candidates, raising the possibility of drug combinations during treatments.Moreover, the candidate compounds have been extensively studied, thus providing important information regarding intracellular interactions caused by them, which are also associated with pathways exploited by the virus, suggesting possible side interactions hindering the replication process.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an arbovirus ( Togaviridae family, Alphavirus genus), first identified in 1953 in Tanzania. In 2005, CHIKV emerged in India, and later caused outbreaks in Southeast Asia, Oceania and the Americas. Some Clinical signs are associated with CHIKV infection include fever and/or concomitant arthralgia, neurological manifestations and death. However, in infections caused by other arboviruses, such as the Dengue virus and West Nile virus, its often observed changes in liver enzymes. This study aims to evaluate the profile of the biochemical markers for kidney and liver injury patients infected with CHIKV in acute phase of infection. We found a significant elevation on the levels of creatinine in CHIKV-infected people, possibly associated with myalgia and indicative of muscle damage. The novelty was the elevated levels of creatinine found during a long period.

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