Abstract

The highly pathogenic influenza virus has caused many human fatalities and poses an increasing pandemic threat. Neuraminidase inhibitors such as oseltamivir and zanamivir have been widely used in the treatment and have gained remarkable success. Although, they are effective in prevention of influenza; the concern for drug resistance still remains a question. Recently, the availability of crystal structures of the enzyme gave a new trend to the structure based drug designing of neuraminidase inhibitors. The article reviews a detailed understanding of the structural features within neuraminidase enzyme which turnouts to be crucial for future drug development. In depth analysis for the newly proposed spots within the 150 and 430-loop regions in N1 makes it distinguishable among the subtypes. Further we have discussed the various computational studies carried out in optimizing the designing of neuraminidase inhibitors thereby providing new clues to modify the currently available drugs.

Keywords: Avian Influenza, H1N1, H5N1, Neuraminidase, Oseltamivir, Zanamivir.