Proteases play an indispensable role in the life cycles of several life-threatening organisms such as the ones causing malaria, cancer and AIDS. A targeted blockade of these enzymes could be an efficient approach for drug modeling against these causative agents. Our study was directed towards the extraction and characterization of a protease inhibitor having activity against Chikungunya virus (CHIKV). A protein-based protease inhibitor (PI) in Streptomyces griseoincarnatus HK12 with anti-viral activity against CHIKV was revealed when screened against two major proteases, papain and trypsin. The PI was efficiently extracted at 60 % ammonium sulfate saturation and purified by ion-exchange chromatography (CM-Sepharose) at 300 mM NaCl elution followed by SDS-PAGE (10 %). The protein was characterized by denaturing SDS-PAGE, reverse zymography, and MALDI-TOF peptide mass fingerprinting. The protein-based PI was studied to have a high molecular weight of 66−70 kDA. The PI was tested to supress the supress cytopathic effects (CPE) exerted by the clinically isolated virus in BHK21 cells. This was used as a measure to determine the antiviral activity. The PI exerted significant effects with an effective concentration calculated as EC₅₀ 11.21 μg/mL. The protein was found to be reported as the first of its kind which also stands out to be the first a natural protease inhibitor against the treatment of the chikungunya virus.

蛋白酶在几种威胁生命的生物的生命周期中发挥着不可或缺的作用，例如导致疟疾、癌症和艾滋病的生物。靶向阻断这些酶可能是针对这些病原体进行药物建模的有效方法。我们的研究旨在提取和表征具有抗基孔肯雅病毒 (CHIKV) 活性的蛋白酶抑制剂。灰色链霉菌中基于蛋白质的蛋白酶抑制剂 (PI)当针对两种主要蛋白酶（木瓜蛋白酶和胰蛋白酶）进行筛选时，显示出具有针对 CHIKV 的抗病毒活性的 HK12。在 60% 硫酸铵饱和度下有效提取 PI，并通过离子交换层析（CM-Sepharose）在 300 mM NaCl 洗脱后进行纯化，然后进行 SDS-PAGE (10%)。该蛋白质的特征在于变性 SDS-PAGE、反向酶谱和 MALDI-TOF 肽质量指纹图谱。研究了基于蛋白质的 PI 具有 66-70 kDA 的高分子量。测试 PI 抑制 BHK21 细胞中临床分离的病毒所产生的抑制细胞病变效应 (CPE)。这被用作确定抗病毒活性的措施。PI 发挥显着影响，有效浓度计算为 EC ₅₀11.21 微克/毫升。据报道，该蛋白质是同类中的第一个，也是第一个针对基孔肯雅病毒治疗的天然蛋白酶抑制剂。