Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a re-emerging mosquito-borne alphavirus that recently caused large epidemics in islands in, and countries around, the Indian Ocean. There is currently no specific
drug for therapeutic treatment or for use as a prophylactic agent against
infection and no commercially available
vaccine.
Prohibitin has been identified as a receptor
protein used by chikungunya virus to enter mammalian cells. Recently, synthetic sulfonyl
amidines and flavaglines (FLs), a class of naturally occurring plant compounds with potent anti-
cancer and cytoprotective and neuroprotective activities, have been shown to interact directly with
prohibitin. This study therefore sought to determine whether three
prohibitin ligands (sulfonyl amidine 1 m and the flavaglines FL3 and FL23) were able to inhibit CHIKV
infection of mammalian Hek293T/17 cells. All three compounds inhibited
infection and reduced virus production when cells were treated before
infection but not when added after
infection. Pretreatment of cells for only 15 minutes prior to
infection followed by washing out of the compound resulted in significant inhibition of entry and virus production. These results suggest that further investigation of
prohibitin ligands as potential Chikungunya virus entry inhibitors is warranted.