Yeast assay to identify inhibitors of dibasic amino acid processing endoproteases

摘要

The present invention relates to a novel method to identify compounds that inhibit proteolytic cleavage by dibasic amino acid processing endoproteases that includes contacting a yeast strain with a putative inhibitory compound under conditions in which, in the absence of the compound, the yeast strain can cleave a precursor protein having a dibasic amino acid processing site and determining if the putative inhibitory compound inhibits cleavage of the precursor protein. The present invention includes a method to identify compounds capable of inhibiting infectious agents, such as viruses, that depend upon dibasic amino acid processing endoprotease cleavage for propagation. The present invention also includes assay kits based on such a method.