Widespread outbreak of numerous infectious diseases across the globe has
created awareness in chemists for the novel design and synthesis of lead molecules.
Like hepatitis is one of the viral infectious disease, damages the liver function and
therefore causes major complications, even leads to death in many cases. More than
one third population of the world is affected by hepatitis. Different viral hepatitis are
Hepatitis A (HAV), B(HBV), C(HCV), D(HDV) and E(HEV), depending upon the
infecting virus type. Hepatitis A and E viruses are usually contacted after eating and
drinking contaminated food and water. While, HBV, HCV and HDV are transmitted
through contaminated blood. Hepatitis B and C are typically chronic, but HDV may be
acute or chronic in nature. Non-viral hepatitis are also reported either due to alcohol
consumption or metabolic disorder medications, which causes the liver stress or
inflammation.
The treatment options of hepatitis vary depending upon what form you have and what
caused the infection. Until recently, the treatment of hepatitis B has been reported with
interferons alone or pegylated interferons while hepatitis C with interferons only or
pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) and ribavirin in combination, both are less successful
(35-40%) and have side effects. Thus, a virus-specific, efficient and drug resistant free,
anti-HBV and anti-HCV therapeutics are needed. Since 2011, the use of new drugs in
targeting NS3/4A protease, NS5B polymerase and NS5A enzymes have enhanced
treatment rates (70-90%) but still showed some side effects. Furthermore, inhibitors are
at diverse stages of clinical development for NS5B and NS5A polymerase targets.
Future design and synthesis of novel drugs must address genetic difference in HBV and
HCV with least drug resistance. Also, for the genetic over-expression in HCV, a
number of investigational techniques have developed which led to the comprehensive
analysis of different aspects of viral life-cycle and interactions between virus and host
(human). Thus, a rising list of targets for therapeutic involvement has been revealed.
The directly acting anti-virals (DAAs) is another therapy method which helps in
exploring novel and highly developed combinations of drugs.
In this chapter, we discuss the synthetic advances of receptor based anti-viral scaffolds
in hepatitis, which afforded significant numbers of agents such as drugs or drug leads,
their mechanisms of action (MOAs), structure-activity relationships (SARs) and future
structural perspectives as drug candidates.
Keywords: Antiviral agents, Combination therapy, Direct acting anti-virals
(DAAs), Drug resistance, Hepatitis, Receptor inhibitors, Structure-activity
relationships (SARs).
