scholarly journals Potential Binding Efficiency of Antiviral Drug Lopinavir Targeted to the Catalytic Dyad, His41 - Cys145 of SARS CoV -2 Main Protease

Author(s):  
Muthu Raj S ◽  
Manohar M ◽  
Mohan M ◽  
Ganesh P ◽  
Marimuthu K

<p>The spread of SARS CoV 2 across the globe rushed the scientific community to find out the potential inhibitor for controlling the viral disease. The main protease (Mpro) or Chymotrypsin protease (3CLpro) is involved in the cleavage of polyproteins, duplication of intracellular materials and release of nonstructural proteins. Cys-His catalytic dyad is located in the SARS-CoV Mpro which is the substrate-binding site located in domains I and II. There are many approved drugs that have their active protease inhibition capability. The targeting of the active site of the main protease is the better option to fight against the viral population. Lopinavir, ritonavir, Remdesivir and Chloroquine are some of the drug candidates considered to be involved in the treatment of SARS CoV 2 under emergency situation as a trial basis. In the present investigation we used lopinavir as a drug to bind the catalytic dyad His41, Cys145 of main protease. The minimum binding of energy of -11.45 kcal/mol observed with the binding of Cys145 and -10.93 kcal/mol was noted with the residue His41. The inhibition constant was also found to be relevant to the binding efficiency of the drug. This is considered to be a model drug target which is initiating the finding of many new drugs to target the current outbreak created by the virus SARS.CoV - 2.</p>

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muthu Raj S ◽  
Manohar M ◽  
Mohan M ◽  
Ganesh P ◽  
Marimuthu K

<p>The spread of SARS CoV 2 across the globe rushed the scientific community to find out the potential inhibitor for controlling the viral disease. The main protease (Mpro) or Chymotrypsin protease (3CLpro) is involved in the cleavage of polyproteins, duplication of intracellular materials and release of nonstructural proteins. Cys-His catalytic dyad is located in the SARS-CoV Mpro which is the substrate-binding site located in domains I and II. There are many approved drugs that have their active protease inhibition capability. The targeting of the active site of the main protease is the better option to fight against the viral population. Lopinavir, ritonavir, Remdesivir and Chloroquine are some of the drug candidates considered to be involved in the treatment of SARS CoV 2 under emergency situation as a trial basis. In the present investigation we used lopinavir as a drug to bind the catalytic dyad His41, Cys145 of main protease. The minimum binding of energy of -11.45 kcal/mol observed with the binding of Cys145 and -10.93 kcal/mol was noted with the residue His41. The inhibition constant was also found to be relevant to the binding efficiency of the drug. This is considered to be a model drug target which is initiating the finding of many new drugs to target the current outbreak created by the virus SARS.CoV - 2.</p>


Author(s):  
Vijayakumar Balakrishnan ◽  
Karthik Lakshminarayanan

In the end of December 2019, a new strain of coronavirus was identified in the Wuhan city of Hubei province in China. Within a shorter period of time, an unprecedented outbreak of this strain was witnessed over the entire Wuhan city. This novel coronavirus strain was later officially renamed as COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) by the World Health Organization. The mode of transmission had been found to be human-to-human contact and hence resulted in a rapid surge across the globe where more than 1,100,000 people have been infected with COVID-19. In the current scenario, finding potent drug candidates for the treatment of COVID-19 has emerged as the most challenging task for clinicians and researchers worldwide. Identification of new drugs and vaccine development may take from a few months to years based on the clinical trial processes. To overcome the several limitations involved in identifying and bringing out potent drug candidates for treating COVID-19, in the present study attempts were made to screen the FDA approved drugs using High Throughput Virtual Screening (HTVS). The COVID-19 main protease (COVID-19 Mpro) was chosen as the drug target for which the FDA approved drugs were initially screened with HTVS. The drug candidates that exhibited favorable docking score, energy and emodel calculations were further taken for performing Induced Fit Docking (IFD) using Schrodinger&rsquo;s GLIDE. From the flexible docking results, the following four FDA approved drugs Sincalide, Pentagastrin, Ritonavir and Phytonadione were identified. In particular, Sincalide and Pentagastrin can be considered potential key players for the treatment of COVID-19 disease.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos A. Ramos-Guzmán ◽  
J. Javier Ruiz-Pernía ◽  
Iñaki Tuñón

The irreversible inhibition of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 by a Michael acceptor compound known as N3 has been investigated using multiscale simulation methods. The noncovalent enzyme-inhibitor complex was simulated using classical Molecular Dynamics techniques and the pose of the inhibitor in the active site was compared to that of the natural substrate, a peptide containing the Gln-Ser scissile bond. The formation of the covalent enzyme-inhibitor complex was then simulated using hybrid QM/MM free energy methods. After binding, the reaction mechanism was found to be composed of two steps: i) the activation of the catalytic dyad (Cys145 and His41) to form an ion pair and ii) a Michael addition where the attack of the Sg atom of Cys145 to the Cb atom of the inhibitor precedes the water-mediated proton transfer from His41 to the Ca atom. The microscopic description of protease inhibition by N3 obtained from our simulations is strongly supported by the excellent agreement between the estimated activation free energy and the value derived from kinetic experiments. Comparison with the acylation reaction of a peptide substrate suggest that that N3-based inhibitors could be improving adding chemical modifications that could facilitate the formation of the catalytic dyad ion pair.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Ebrahim ◽  
Blake T Riley ◽  
Desigan Kumaran ◽  
Babak Andi ◽  
Martin R Fuchs ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic, instigated by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, continues to plague the globe. The SARS-CoV-2 main protease, or Mpro, is a promising target for development of novel antiviral therapeutics. Previous X-ray crystal structures of Mpro were obtained at cryogenic temperature or room temperature only. Here we report a series of high-resolution crystal structures of unliganded Mpro across multiple temperatures from cryogenic to physiological, and another at high humidity. We interrogate these datasets with parsimonious multiconformer models, multi-copy ensemble models, and isomorphous difference density maps. Our analysis reveals a temperature-dependent conformational landscape for Mpro, including a mobile water interleaved between the catalytic dyad, mercurial conformational heterogeneity in a key substrate-binding loop, and a far-reaching intramolecular network bridging the active site and dimer interface. Our results may inspire new strategies for antiviral drug development to counter-punch COVID-19.


Author(s):  
Bowen Tang ◽  
Fengming He ◽  
Dongpeng Liu ◽  
Meijuan Fang ◽  
Zhen Wu ◽  
...  

AbstractThe focused drug repurposing of known approved drugs (such as lopinavir/ritonavir) has been reported failed for curing SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. It is urgent to generate new chemical entities against this virus. As a key enzyme in the life-cycle of coronavirus, the 3C-like main protease (3CLpro or Mpro) is the most attractive for antiviral drug design. Based on a recently solved structure (PDB ID: 6LU7), we developed a novel advanced deep Q-learning network with the fragment-based drug design (ADQN-FBDD) for generating potential lead compounds targeting SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro. We obtained a series of derivatives from those lead compounds by our structure-based optimization policy (SBOP). All the 47 lead compounds directly from our AI-model and related derivatives based on SBOP are accessible in our molecular library at https://github.com/tbwxmu/2019-nCov. These compounds can be used as potential candidates for researchers in their development of drugs against SARS-CoV-2.


Author(s):  
Merve Yuce ◽  
Erdem Cicek ◽  
Tuğçe İnan ◽  
Aslıhan Başak Dağ ◽  
Özge Kürkçüoğlu ◽  
...  

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) still has serious negative effects on health, social life, and economics. Recently, vaccines from various companies have been urgently approved to control SARS-CoV-2 infections. However, any specific antiviral drug has not been confirmed so far for regular treatment. An important target is the main protease (Mpro), which plays a major role in replication of the virus. In this study, Gaussian and residue network models are employed to reveal two distinct potential allosteric sites on Mpro that can be evaluated as drug targets besides the active site. Then, FDA-approved drugs are docked to three distinct sites with flexible docking using AutoDock Vina to identify potential drug candidates. 14 best molecule hits for the active site of Mpro are determined. 6 of these also exhibit high docking scores for the potential allosteric regions. Full-atom molecular dynamics simulations with MM-GBSA method indicate that compounds docked to active and potential allosteric sites form stable interactions with high binding free energy (∆Gbind) values. ∆Gbind values reach -52.06 kcal/mol for the active site, -51.08 kcal/mol for the potential allosteric site 1, and -42.93 kcal/mol for the potential allosteric site 2. Energy decomposition calculations per residue elucidate key binding residues stabilizing the ligands that can further serve to design pharmacophores. This systematic and efficient computational analysis successfully determines ivermectine, diosmin and selinexor currently subjected to clinical trials, and further proposes bromocriptine, elbasvir as Mpro inhibitor candidates to be evaluated against SARS-CoV-2 infection


Author(s):  
Carlos A. Ramos-Guzmán ◽  
J. Javier Ruiz-Pernía ◽  
Iñaki Tuñón

The irreversible inhibition of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 by a Michael acceptor compound known as N3 has been investigated using multiscale simulation methods. The noncovalent enzyme-inhibitor complex was simulated using classical Molecular Dynamics techniques and the pose of the inhibitor in the active site was compared to that of the natural substrate, a peptide containing the Gln-Ser scissile bond. The formation of the covalent enzyme-inhibitor complex was then simulated using hybrid QM/MM free energy methods. After binding, the reaction mechanism was found to be composed of two steps: i) the activation of the catalytic dyad (Cys145 and His41) to form an ion pair and ii) a Michael addition where the attack of the Sg atom of Cys145 to the Cb atom of the inhibitor precedes the water-mediated proton transfer from His41 to the Ca atom. The microscopic description of protease inhibition by N3 obtained from our simulations is strongly supported by the excellent agreement between the estimated activation free energy and the value derived from kinetic experiments. Comparison with the acylation reaction of a peptide substrate suggest that that N3-based inhibitors could be improving adding chemical modifications that could facilitate the formation of the catalytic dyad ion pair.


Author(s):  
Jeremy D. Baker ◽  
Rikki L. Uhrich ◽  
Gerald C. Kraemer ◽  
Jason E. Love ◽  
Brian C. Kraemer

AbstractThe SARS coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in late 2019 as a zoonotic virus highly transmissible between humans that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2. This pandemic has the potential to disrupt healthcare globally and has already caused high levels of mortality, especially amongst the elderly. The overall case fatality rate for COVID-19 is estimated to be ∼2.3% overall 3 and 32.3% in hospitalized patients age 70-79 years 4. Therapeutic options for treating the underlying viremia in COVID-19 are presently limited by a lack of effective SARS-CoV-2 antiviral drugs, although steroidal anti-inflammatory treatment can be helpful. A variety of potential antiviral targets for SARS-CoV-2 have been considered including the spike protein and replicase. Based upon previous successful antiviral drug development for HIV-1 and hepatitis C, the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) appears an attractive target for drug development. Here we show the existing pharmacopeia contains many drugs with potential for therapeutic repurposing as selective and potent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro. We screened a collection of ∼6,070 drugs with a previous history of use in humans for compounds that inhibit the activity of Mpro in vitro. In our primary screen we found ∼50 compounds with activity against Mpro (overall hit rate <0.75%). Subsequent dose validation studies demonstrated 8 dose responsive hits with an IC50 ≤ 50 μM. Hits from our screen are enriched with hepatitis C NS3/4A protease targeting drugs including Boceprevir (IC50=0.95 μM), Ciluprevir (20.77μM). Narlaprevir (IC50=1.10μM), and Telaprevir (15.25μM). These results demonstrate that some existing approved drugs can inhibit SARS-CoV-2 Mpro and that screen saturation of all approved drugs is both feasible and warranted. Taken together this work suggests previous large-scale commercial drug development initiatives targeting hepatitis C NS3/4A viral protease should be revisited because some previous lead compounds may be more potent against SARS-CoV-2 Mpro than Boceprevir and suitable for rapid repurposing.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos A. Ramos-Guzmán ◽  
J. Javier Ruiz-Pernía ◽  
Iñaki Tuñón

Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease by a Michael acceptor is studied using classical and QM/MM simulations. Results point out to a transition state with a key water molecule stabilizing the catalytic dyad and assisting the protonation step.


Author(s):  
Olusola O. Elekofehinti ◽  
Opeyemi Iwaloye ◽  
Courage D. Famusiwa ◽  
Olanrewaju Akinseye ◽  
Joao B. T. Rocha

Background: he recent outbreak of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) which has rapidly spread around the world in about three months with tens of thousands of deaths recorded so far is a global concern. An urgent need for potential therapeutic intervention is of necessity. Mpro is an attractive druggable target for the development of anti-COVID-19 drug development. Compounds previously characterized from Melissa officinalis were queried against main protease of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 using computational approach. Results: Melitric acid A and salvanolic acid A had higher affinity than lopinavir and ivermectin using both AutodockVina and XP docking algorithms. The computational approach was employed in the generation of QSAR model using automated QSAR, and in the docking of ligands from Melissa officinalis with SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitors. The best model obtained was KPLS_Radial_28 (R2 = 0.8548 and Q2=0.6474, and was used in predicting the bioactivity of the lead compounds. Molecular mechanics based MM-GBSA confirmed salvanolic acid A as the compound with the highest free energy and predicted bioactivity of 4.777; it interacted with His-41 of the catalytic dyad (Cys145-His41) of SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro), as this may hinder the cutting of inactive viral protein into active ones capable of replication. Conclusion: Salvanolic acid A can be further evaluated as potential Mpro inhibitor.


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