Viral proteases are indispensable for successful virion maturation, thus making them a prominent drug target. Their enzyme activity is tightly spatiotemporally regulated by expression in the precursor form with little or no activity, followed by activation via autoprocessing. These cleavage events are frequently triggered upon transportation to a specific compartment inside the host cell. Typically, precursor oligomerization or the presence of a co-factor is needed for activation. A detailed understanding of these mechanisms will allow ligands with non-canonical mechanisms of action to be designed, which would specifically modulate the initial irreversible steps of viral protease autoactivation. Binding sites exclusive to the precursor, including binding sites beyond the protease domain, can be exploited. Both inhibition and up-regulation of the proteolytic activity of viral proteases can be detrimental for the virus. All these possibilities are discussed using examples of medically relevant viruses including herpesviruses, adenoviruses, retroviruses, picornaviruses, caliciviruses, togaviruses, flaviviruses, and coronaviruses.

• Klíčová slova
• Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), activation, adenoviruses, autoprocessing, flaviviruses, herpesviruses, precursor, protease,
• MeSH
• antivirové látky farmakologie   MeSH
• Flavivirus účinky léků   metabolismus   MeSH
• Herpesviridae účinky léků   metabolismus   MeSH
• HIV-1 účinky léků   MeSH
• inhibitory virových proteáz farmakologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• lidské adenoviry účinky léků   metabolismus   MeSH
• SARS-CoV-2 účinky léků   metabolismus   MeSH
• virové nemoci farmakoterapie   MeSH
• virové proteasy biosyntéza   metabolismus   MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• přehledy MeSH
• Názvy látek
• antivirové látky MeSH
• inhibitory virových proteáz MeSH
• virové proteasy MeSH