Design, synthesis and molecular modeling studies of drug candidate compounds against prion diseases

Prion diseases are a group of invariably fatal disorders, for which there is no cure. Despite their rare incidence in humans, prion diseases have captured very large attention from the scientific community due to the unconventional mechanism by which they are transmitted.1 The central feature of prion diseases is the accumulation in the brain and some other tissues of the diseaseassociated PrPSc, which is derived from the host-encoded cellular PrPC.1 The conversion from a normal form (PrPC) to an infectious isoform (scrapie, PrPSc) is triggered by the interaction between PrPC-PrPSc,2 as well as protein-protein interaction (PPI).3...