Zika Virus: Discovering Effective Protease Inhibitors via Template-Based Modeling

The Zika virus, which is a member of the flavivirus genus, poses a serious threat to humanity because there is no vaccine or cure. Zika is suspected to cause microcephaly, and it is rapidly spreading throughout parts of Brazil. Surprisingly, there are no known protein structures for the virus which are essential for drug and vaccine development. This paper investigates the Zika virus's nonstructural proteins with template-based modeling by using GalaxyTBM/Refine/SC. GalaxyDock was used to examine the effectiveness of various known serine protease inhibitors in inhibiting the Zika viral protease. In testing five inhibitors, Kunitz soybean trypsin inhibitor showed the strongest binding affinity (-10.082 kcal/mol). This paper provides a rudimentary foundation for further drug discovery research regarding the Zika virus.