Design, Synthesis and Discovery of N,N'-Carbazoyl-aryl-urea Inhibitors of Zika NS5 Methyltransferase and Virus Replication

The recent outbreaks of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection worldwide make the discovery of novel antivirals against flaviviruses a research priority. This work describes the identification of novel inhibitors of ZIKV through a structure‐based virtual screening approach using the ZIKV NS5‐MTase. A novel series of molecules with a carbazoyl‐aryl‐urea structure has been discovered and a library of analogues has been synthesized. The new compounds inhibit ZIKV MTase with IC50 between 23–48 μM. In addition, carbazoyl‐aryl‐ureas also proved to inhibit ZIKV replication activity at micromolar concentration