Ligand-Based Approaches for the Development of Drugs Against SARS-CoV-2

The current COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has now seen an unprecedented global trend of viral transmission leading to over a million fatalities worldwide. SARS-CoV-2 is a betacoronavirus which possesses a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome that encodes various structural, non-structural, and accessory proteins. Due to the zoonotic nature of SARS-CoV-2 and current transmission trend, scientists must identify effective therapeutics against the virus. Ligand-based drug designing is a computational approach based on the principle that similar compounds exhibit similar activities;hence, it is employed to identify, screen, or design drug-like molecules based on the existing drug molecules. The present chapter provides an overview of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, viral drug targets and dives deeply into the computational approach of ligand-based drug designing (LBDD). The chapter aims to provide a detailed methodology of LBDD and the current research endeavors that have utilized the technique to identify, screen, or design potential drug molecules against SARS-CoV-2.