Abstract
Viruses represent the most common cause of infectious diseases worldwide and those with rapid propagation and high infection rates cause human and animal pandemics. These fast-spreading diseases are generally treated with antiviral drugs but, often, drug resistance occurs because of the ability of the pathogens to mutate rapidly and become less susceptible to the treatments. Even though new antivirals have been approved, e.g., in HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and HCV (hepatitis C virus) therapeutic areas, the need to dispose of new pharmaceutical tools for the management of infections that still have no treatment is of growing interest. In these areas, carbazole represents an important privileged scaffold in drug discovery. Many compounds with a carbazolic core have been developed and some of them have shown antiviral activity. This review provides an overview on some already known carbazole derivatives, pointing the attention on the running progresses in identifying new molecules with carbazolic structure, that have shown interesting and encouraging in vitro and in vivo properties. These drugs may be exploited as valid alternatives in antiviral therapy.
Highlights
Viruses are the cause of extremely widespread diseases, including the common cold, influenza, chickenpox, herpes, gastroenteritis, human immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)), and hepatitis
Both the Dengue virus, which is the cause of 50–100 million cases of Dengue fever per year [3], and the oncogenic human papillomaviruses, which is the cause of cervical cancer [4], do not have an adequate and effective therapy
These observations clearly indicate that the search for new broad-spectrum antiviral agents with reduced side effects is a great scientific topic [5]
Summary
Viruses are the cause of extremely widespread diseases, including the common cold, influenza, chickenpox, herpes, gastroenteritis (stomach flu), human immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS), and hepatitis. In spite of these significant advances, different common viral infections still do not have effective and low-risk treatments [2] Both the Dengue virus, which is the cause of 50–100 million cases of Dengue fever per year [3], and the oncogenic human papillomaviruses, which is the cause of cervical cancer [4], do not have an adequate and effective therapy. This review reports the most recent developments of carbazole derivatives in the relatively low-studied area of antiviral drug discovery, focusing on the activity of these compounds for the treatment of widespread infections produced by HIV, HCMV; hepatitis C virus (HCV), HSV, and human papilloma viruses (HPVs).
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