Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has emerged as one of the most significant disease to affect humans. Despite its large medical and economical impact, there are no vaccines or efficient therapies without major side effects. The HCV non-structural protein 5B (NS5B) is the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase responsible for the complete copy of the RNA viral genome and is a target of choice for the development of anti-HCV drugs. Although many small molecules have been identified as allosteric inhibitors of NS5B, very few are active in clinical applications. Developments in the field have prompted us to review the research work on HCV NS5B polymerase inhibitors, especially their structure activity relationships and molecular modeling studies. This review will focus on the journey of drug discovery of HCV NS5B inhibitors covering both nucleoside and non-nucleosides.

Keywords: Hepatitis C virus, anti-HCV agents, NS5B polymerase inhibitors, QSAR, non-structural protein, anti-HCV drugs, allosteric inhibitors, polymerase inhibitors, nucleoside, non-nucleosides