| Abstract: | NS5A is one of the non-structural gene products encoded by Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and related viruses that are essential for viral replication. The amino acid sequence of NS5A is conserved between different HCV genotypes and the primary amino acid sequence of NS5A is unique to HCV and closely related viruses. Importantly, NS5A is unrelated to any human protein. This indicates that drugs designed to block the actions of NS5A could inhibit the replication of HCV without showing toxic side effects in human host cells, thus making NS5A inhibitors ideal anti-viral drugs. However, there are presently no functional assays for this essential viral protein. Therefore, conventional high throughput screening (HTS) approaches can not be used to discover antiviral drugs against NS5A. |
