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Chandipura virus (CHPV), belonging to the genus Vesiculovirus of the family Rhabdoviridae, has been identified as one of the causes of pediatric encephalitis in India. Currently, neither vaccines nor therapeutic drugs are available against this agent. Considering that the disease progresses very fast with a high mortality rate, working towards the development of potential therapeutics against it will have a public health impact. Although the use of viral inhibitors as antiviral agents is the most common way to curb virus replication, the mutation-prone nature of viruses results in the development of resistance to antiviral agents. The recent development of proteomic platforms for analysis of purified viral agents has allowed certain upregulated host proteins that are involved in the morphogenesis and replication of viruses to be identified. Thus, the alternative approach of inhibition of host proteins involved in the regulation of virus replication could be explored for their therapeutic effectiveness. In the current study, we have evaluated the effect of inhibition of cyclophilin A (CypA), an immunophilin with peptidyl-prolyl cis/trans-isomerase activity, on the replication of CHPV. Treatment with cyclosporin A, used in vitro for the inhibition of CypA, resulted in a 3-log reduction in CHPV titer and an undetectable level of CypA in comparison to an untreated control. An in silico analysis of the interaction of the CHPV nucleoprotein with the human CypA protein showed stable interaction in molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. Overall, the results of this study suggest a possible role of CypA in facilitating CHPV replication, thus making it one of the potential host factors to be explored in future antiviral studies.

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Chandipura virus (CHPV), associated with an encephalitic illness in humans, has caused multiple outbreaks with high mortality in central and western India in recent years. The present study compares surface glycoprotein (G-protein) from prototype and recent outbreak strains using in silico tools and in vitro experiments. In silico epitope predictions (B-cell and T-helper cell) for the sequences, 3D structure prediction and comparison of the G-proteins of the strains: I653514 (Year 1965), CIN0327 (Year 2003) and 148974 (Year 2014) revealed that the CHPV G-protein is stable and antigenic determinants are conserved. A monoclonal antibody developed against strain CIN0327 (named NAbC) was found to neutralize prototype I653514 as well as the currently circulating strain 148974. In silico antigen-antibody interaction studies using molecular docking of predicted structures of NAbC and G-proteins of various CHPV strains led to the identification of a conserved neutralizing epitope in the fusion domain of G-protein, which also contained a putative T-helper peptide. The identification of a conserved neutralizing epitope in domain IV (fusion domain amino acids 53 to 172) of CHPV G-protein is an important finding that may have the scope towards the development of protective targets against CHPV infection.