A Novel Approach to Develop New and Potent Inhibitors for the Simultaneous Inhibition of Protease and Helicase Activities of HCV NS3/4A Protease: A Computational Approach
, Muhammad Waqas 3, Asaad Khalid 4,5, Ashraf N. Abdalla 6, Arif Mahmood 7, Junjian Hu 8,* and Abdul Wadood 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
the article with title " A Novel Approach to Develop New and Potent Inhibitors for 2 the Simultaneous Inhibition of Protease and Helicase Activities 3 of HCV NS3/4A Protease: A computational Approach" show a good results as dry lab applications and Computational and Theoretical Chemistry, the quality of the figures are good but
1-the author didn’t mention the origin of the tested compound or at least reference for them.
2- the reference should be renewed as I found a reference from 1989 , 2001, 2004
Author Response
Please see the attached file for comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Editor,
The study, entitled ‘A Novel Approach to Develop New and Potent Inhibitors for 2 the Simultaneous Inhibition of Protease and Helicase Activities 3 of HCV NS3/4A Protease: A computational Approach’ with manuscript number molecules-2139525, discusses the design of 12 new NS3/4A protease inhibitors via the employment of computer-aided techniques. The study is interesting for researchers in the relevant field. Some minor suggestions are provided below:
- Hep C is a worldwide threatening disease; therefore more statistics should be given in the abstract part regarding the cases in Europe, USA, for instance.
- It is not clear in the abstract part which side of the protein is targeted and how this is rationalized.
- Scheme 2 misses two describe the precursor molecules. Caption should be revised.
- RECAP Analysis is used to fragment a molecule by breaking some bonds which are 169 likely to be those that can be reformed by common reliable chemistry. The methodology 170 is similar to that of [34] and [35]. This sentence does not make sense. 34 and 35 should be clarified in the text.
- Line 177 Thirty one different fragments 177 were generated from the above mentioned seven inhibitors according to simple retrosynthetic analysis rules. Citation is missing.
- Figure 4 also misses sufficient caption to introduce the compounds.
- What is the importance of selected drug-likely properties?
- I don’t think there is need for the nomenclature of the 12 title compounds.
- Although it is a computational study, one wonders at least one of those compounds exact activity measured.
Author Response
Please find the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
