Acriflavine and proflavine hemisulfate as potential antivirals by targeting Mpro

A cysteine protease inhibitor GC376 displays potent antiviral activity against coxsackievirus infection

“…The inhibitors against serine protease of HIV, together with reverse transcriptase inhibitors, have constituted the regime of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to achieve HIV virological suppression. Beside non-competitive or non-covalent inhibitors ( Ratia et al., 2008 ; Xu et al., 2021 ; Liang et al., 2022 ), small molecule compounds covalently linked to thiol group have also been discovered because of the high nucleophilicity of thiol group on cysteine residue located in the catalytically active site of cysteine protease ( Dai et al., 2020 ; Liu et al., 2021 ). Paxlovid, a drug under investigation which consists of covalent coronavirus cysteine protease inhibitor (nirmatrelvir) and an enhancer (ritonavir) has been authorized for the emergency use to treat mild-to-moderate COVID-19.…”

The research progress of SARS-CoV-2 main protease inhibitors from 2020 to 2022

“…In 2022, Chen research group established an enzymatic assay that used a fluorogenic substrate to screen the M pro inhibitors [ 63 ]. The results showed that Acriflavine ( 51 ) and Proflavine Hemisulfate ( 52 ) had good inhibitory activity against M pro with IC 50 values of 5.60 and 2.07 μM, respectively ( Table 4 ).…”

Investigation of eco-friendly fluorescence quenching probes for assessment of acemetacin using silver nanoparticles and acriflavine reagent

“…It served as a fluorescent and absorbent probe for spotting nucleic acid structures. Antimalarial, interferon-like activity 7 , antiviral 8 , antimicrobial activity 9 anti-cancer activity, AIDS treatment, anti-bacterial and local antiseptic activity are its pharmacological actions. Due to its spectroscopic and pharmacological characteristics could be employed as a diagnostic tool and an effective laser dye 10 .…”