Drug designing against NSP15 of SARS-COV2 via high throughput computational screening and structural dynamics approach.

The rapid outbreak of the COVID-19 also known as SARS-CoV2 has been declared pandemic with serious global concern. As there is no effective therapeutic against COVID-19, there is an urgent need for explicit treatment against it. The focused objective of the current study is to propose promising drug candidates against the newly identified potential therapeutic target (endonuclease, NSP15) of SARS-CoV2. NSP15 is an attractive druggable target due to its critical role in SARS-CoV2 replication and virulence in addition to interference with the host immune system. Here in the present study, we integrated the high throughput computational screening and dynamic simulation approach to identify the most promising candidate lead compound against NSP15. 5-fluoro-2-oxo-1H-pyrazine-3-carboxamide (favipiravir), (3R,4R,5R)-3,4-Bis(benzyloxy)-5-((benzyloxy) methyl) dihydrofuran-2(3H)-one) remedesivir, 1,3-thiazol-5-ylmethyl N-[(2S,3S,5S)-3-hydroxy-5-[[(2S)-3-methyl-2-[[methyl-[(2-propan-2-yl-1,3-thiazol-4-yl)methyl]carbamoyl]amino]butanoyl]amino]-1,6-diphenylhexan-2-yl]carbamate (ritonavir), ethyl (3R,4R,5S)-4-acetamido-5-amino-3-pentan-3-yloxycyclohexene-1-carboxylate (oseltamivir), and (2S)-N-[(2S,4S,5S)-5-[[2-(2,6-dimethylphenoxy)acetyl]amino]-4-hydroxy-1,6-diphenylhexan-2-yl]-3-methyl-2-(2-oxo-1,3-diazinan-1-yl)butanamide (lopinavir) were chosen as a training set to generate the pharmacophore model. A dataset of ∼140000 compounds library was screened against the designed pharmacophore model and 10 unique compounds were selected that passed successfully through geometry constraints, Lipinski Rule of 5, and ADME/Tox filters along with a strong binding affinity for NSP15 binding cavity. The best fit compound was selected for dynamic simulation to have detailed structural features critical for binding with the NSP15 protein. Given our detailed integrative computational analysis, a Small molecule (3,3-Dimethyl-N-[4-(1-piperidinylcarbonyl) phenyl] butanamide) with drug-like properties and high binding affinity with the NSP15 is proposed as a most promising potential drug against COVID-19. The current computational integrative approach may complement high-throughput screening and the shortlisted small molecule may contribute to selective targeting of NSP15 to stop the replication of SARS-CoV2.