Druggability for COVID19 – in Silico Discovery of Potential Drug Compounds Against Nucleocapsid (N) Protein of SARS-CoV-2
2020
Background:
The coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19) was caused havoc throughout the world by creating
widespread mortality and morbidity. The presence of RNA binding domain in the
nucleocapsid (N) protein of SARS-CoV-2 is
a potential drug target, serving multiple critical functions during the viral
life cycle, especially the viral replication. The unavailability of vaccines
and proper antiviral drugs encourages the researchers to identify some
potential antiviral drug compounds to be used against N protein of SARS-CoV-2
for this current scenario. While vaccine development might take some time, the
identification of a drug compound might decrease the widespread deaths and
suffering.
Method:
This study was analyzed the phylogenetic relationship of N protein sequence
divergence with other 49 CoV species and also identified the conserved regions
according to protein families through conserved domain search. Along with it,
good structural binding affinities of some natural/synthetic phytocompounds/
drugs against N protein were also found using the molecular docking approaches.
Result:
The analyzed antiviral properties, predicted binding affinities and the
presence of higher numbers of Hydrogen bonds of selected compounds represent
the drug-ability of these compounds. Among them, the established antiviral drug
Glycyrrhizic acid and the phytochemical Theaflavin
can be considered as putative drug compound against target protein of
SARS-CoV-2 as they showed all the properties of a potential drug.
Conclusion:
The findings of this study might lead to the development of a drug for the
disease and helpful to reduce the risk of deadly infections in host cell due to
SARS-CoV-2.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
0
References
2
Citations
NaN
KQI