PREDICTION OF ANTIVIRAL DRUG TARGETING VP 1 PROTEIN OF BLUE TONGUE VIRUS

Abstract

Blue Tongue is a vector mediated viral disease of cattle that is prevalent in tropical and subtropical countries. It has been listed as a ‘notifiable disease’ by the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) because it causes heavy losses in the form of productivity loss (weight loss, wool break, reduced milk and meat yield), high morbidity, mortality, abortion. The disease is caused by a virus belonging to family Reoviridae and species of the genus Orbivirus called Blue Tongue Virus (BTV). It is an intricate non-enveloped virus with seven structural proteins which are arranged in two capsids forming outer and inner shell of virus and a genome of ten double-stranded RNA (ds RNA) segments contained in the inner shell. Shortly after gaining entry into the cell the outer capsid is degraded to release an inner core (inner capsid) which helps in synthesis of capped mRNAs from each one of the genomic segment contained inside the core, expelling them into the cytoplasm. Twenty six serotypes of the Blue Tongue virus have been discovered till date. The viral genome encodes for seven structural proteins (VP1 to VP7) and also for four non-structural proteins (NS1, NS2, NS3/NS3A and NS4), out of which structural protein VP1 is highly conserved and is present in transcription complex and act as RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP). Targeting of VP1 is an effective way to treat Bluetongue Disease. In the present study, docking of various anti-viral drugs with VP1 was studied using bioinformatics tools and two effective candidate drug molecules, namely Favipiravir and BAS 01884755, were selected based on the docking studies.