Química medicinal do Ebola vírus

Abstract

Ebola is a virus from the Filoviridae family, which includes 6 other types of Ebola vírus (EBOV), however, the most epidemiologically relevant are Zaire ebola and Sudan ebola viruses. Both of them were identified in 1976 in Zaire and Sudan regions, in outbreaks characterized by hemorrhagic fever, in addition to fever, headache, weakness, nausea, among other symptoms which make it difficult to initially distinguish from other common viruses. The transmission can occur by contact with contaminated human body fluids, during the symptomatic period of infected individuals. The occurrence of EBOV in the world, since its appearance, is characterized by isolated cases, being endemic in some African countries due to the culture and its zoonotic characteristics, where the mortality rate can be quite high, in some cases, reaching 90%. EBOV is composed of 7 structural and two non-structural proteins, with specific functions in relation to pathogenicity, evasion of the immune system, and replication. This work aimed to collect studies on the fight against hemorrhagic fever caused by EBOV, by searching in academic and scientific databases, such as "Science Direct", "PubMed", "Scifinder" among others, collecting works published from 1977 to 2020. As a result, the corresponding work highlights 30 compounds aimed at fighting EBOV hemorrhagic fever, among them, compounds from natural and synthetic origin, with and without a specific target. Also, compounds from synthetic origin have been more studied, where these can act as inhibitors of EBOV glycoprotein (GP) and RNA synthesis. In addition, genetic strategies have stood out as a more promising method for the treatment of EBOV, being responsible for the emergence of the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, developed by Jhonson & Jhonson®. Finally, this work represents a compilation of studies focused on the development of compounds and other immunological strategies against EBOV, from the medicinal chemistry perspective, which can be used to foment researches aiming the development of more promising new compounds in the future.