The misregulation of microRNAs, regulatory RNA molecules of 20 nucleotides, has been associated with various diseases, especially cancer. The liver specific microRNA-122 (miR-122) is necessary for the translation and the replication of the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Small molecules that can specifically inhibit the activity of miR-122 constitute new tools to elucidate the involvement of miR-122 in HCV infection and could provide potential new antiviral therapies. We synthesized a focused series of analogs of a previously discovered miR-122 specific inhibitor, which allowed us to investigate the structural requirement for the miR-122 inhibitory activity. Also, we successfully synthesized a small molecule miR-122 inhibitor as a probe to explore the mode of action of our compounds.

Exploring microRNA-122 biology with synthetic small organic molecules

245th National Meeting (2013)

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