The hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3 protease is essential for polyprotein maturation and viral propagation, and it has been proposed as a suitable target for antiviral drug discovery. An N-terminal hexapeptide cleavage product of a dodecapeptide substrate identified as a weak competitive inhibitor of the NS3 protease activity was optimized to a potent and highly specific inhibitor of the enzyme. The effect of this potent NS3 protease inhibitor was evaluated on replication of subgenomic HCV RNA and compared with interferon-␣ (IFN-␣), which is currently used in the treatment of HCV-infected patients. Treatment of replicon-containing cells with the NS3 protease inhibitor or IFN-␣ showed a dose-dependent decrease in subgenomic HCV RNA that reached undetectable levels following a 14-day treatment. Kinetic studies in the presence of either NS3 protease inhibitor or IFN-␣ also revealed similar profiles in HCV RNA decay with half-lives of 11 and 14 h, respectively. The finding that an antiviral specifically targeting the NS3 protease activity inhibits HCV RNA replication further validates the NS3 enzyme as a prime target for drug discovery and supports the development of NS3 protease inhibitors as a novel therapeutic approach for HCV infection.
HCV1 as a member of the Flaviviridae family is the major etiological agent of non-A, non-B viral hepatitis and an important cause of chronic liver disease leading to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in humans (1, 2). An estimated 170 million people worldwide are infected with HCV, and end stage liver disease associated with this virus is now the leading cause of liver transplantation in the western world (3). Many patients treated with IFN-␣ alone or with a combination of IFN-␣ plus ribavirin fail to show a sustained virologic response and currently have no other treatment option. Given the high prevalence of the infection, HCV has become the focus of intensive research. Originally cloned in 1989 (1), the viral RNA genome is now well characterized. The ϳ9600-nucleotide genome is of positive polarity that encodes a ϳ3000-amino acid polyprotein, which is the precursor of at least 10 mature viral proteins: C-E1-E2-p7-NS2-NS3-NS4A-NS4B-NS5A-NS5B. C is the nucleocapsid protein that binds and encapsulates the viral RNA genome (4), E1 and E2 are the virion glycoproteins, and p7 is of unknown function (5). The NS2 to NS5B proteins inclusively are thought to comprise nonstructural proteins involved in replication and polyprotein processing (6). The individual proteins are processed from the polyprotein by a combination of host and viral proteases. Host signal peptidases are responsible for the cleavages between C, E1, E2, p7, and NS2. The cleavage between NS2 and NS3 is performed in an autoproteolytic manner by the metal-dependent protease NS2/3 (7, 8). The proteolytic release of NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B is catalyzed by the multifunctional NS3 enzyme, which in conjunction with the mature NS4A cofactor mediates efficient processing (for a review, see Ref. 9). The large polyprotein open...