Phenotypic assessment of antiviral activity for spiro‐annulated oxepanes and azepenes

Evolutionary potential of viruses can result in outbreaks of well‐known viruses and emergence of novel ones. Pharmacological methods of intervening the reproduction of various less popular, but not less important viruses are not available, as well as the spectrum of antiviral activity for most known compounds. In the framework of chemical biology paradigm, characterization of antiviral activity spectrum of new compounds allows to extend the antiviral chemical space and provides new important structure–activity relationships for data‐driven drug discovery. Here we present a primary assessment of antiviral activity of spiro‐annulated derivatives of seven‐membered heterocycles, oxepane and azepane, in phenotypic assays against viruses with different genomes, virion structures, and genome realization schemes: orthoflavivirus (tick‐borne encephalitis virus, TBEV), enteroviruses (poliovirus, enterovirus A71, echovirus 30), adenovirus (human adenovirus C5), hantavirus (Puumala virus). Hit compounds inhibited reproduction of adenovirus C5, the only DNA virus in the studied set, in the yield reduction assay, and did not inhibit reproduction of RNA viruses.