scholarly journals Progress in Developing Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 3C-Like Protease

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 1250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingxin Li ◽  
CongBao Kang

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The viral outbreak started in late 2019 and rapidly became a serious health threat to the global population. COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. Several therapeutic options have been adopted to prevent the spread of the virus. Although vaccines have been developed, antivirals are still needed to combat the infection of this virus. SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped virus, and its genome encodes polyproteins that can be processed into structural and nonstructural proteins. Maturation of viral proteins requires cleavages by proteases. Therefore, the main protease (3 chymotrypsin-like protease (3CLpro) or Mpro) encoded by the viral genome is an attractive drug target because it plays an important role in cleaving viral polyproteins into functional proteins. Inhibiting this enzyme is an efficient strategy to block viral replication. Structural studies provide valuable insight into the function of this protease and structural basis for rational inhibitor design. In this review, we describe structural studies on the main protease of SARS-CoV-2. The strategies applied in developing inhibitors of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 and currently available protein inhibitors are summarized. Due to the availability of high-resolution structures, structure-guided drug design will play an important role in developing antivirals. The availability of high-resolution structures, potent peptidic inhibitors, and diverse compound scaffolds indicate the feasibility of developing potent protease inhibitors as antivirals for COVID-19.

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Rehm ◽  
Guilherme Borges ◽  
Gerhard Gmel ◽  
Kathryn Graham ◽  
Bridget Grant ◽  
...  

Rehm, J., Borges, G., Gmel, G., Graham, K., Grant, B., Parry, C., Poznyak, V. & Room R. (2013). The comparative risk assessment for alcohol as part of the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study: What changed from the last study? International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 2(1), 1-5.  doi: 10.7895/ijadr.v2i1.132 (http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v2i1.132)In December 2012, the new results of the Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) for alcohol within the Global Burden of Disease and Injury (GBD) Study 2010 were presented at a joint meeting of the GBD Group and the journal Lancet at the Royal Society in London (Lim et al., 2012). At first glance, there do not appear to be many changes to alcohol consumption as a risk factor for death and disability: it is identified as the third most important risk factor, as it was in the last CRA (World Health Organization, 2009). The burden of disease attributable to alcohol had increased, compared to the 2004 estimate (Rehm, Mathers et al., 2009), but this could be due to an increase in global population, or to variations in the methodologies behind the 2004 and 2010 estimates.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Savariar Vincent ◽  
Selvaraj Arokiyaraj ◽  
Muthupandian Saravanan ◽  
Manoj Dhanraj

The COVID-19 has now been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. No approved drug is currently available; therefore, an urgent need has been developed for any antiviral therapy for COVID-19. Main protease 3CLpro of this novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) play a critical role in the disease propagation, and hence represent a crucial target for the drug discovery. Herein, we have applied a bioinformatics approach for drug repurposing to identify the possible potent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 main proteases 3CLpro (6LU7). In search of the anti-COVID-19 compound, we selected 145 phyto-compounds from Kabasura kudineer (KK), a poly-herbal formulation recommended by AYUSH for COVID-19 which are effective against fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath (similar to SARS-CoV2-like symptoms). The present study aims to identify molecules from natural products which may inhibit COVID-19 by acting on the main protease (3CLpro). Obtained results by molecular docking showed that Acetoside (−153.06), Luteolin 7 -rutinoside (−134.6) rutin (−133.06), Chebulagic acid (−124.3), Syrigaresinol (−120.03), Acanthoside (−122.21), Violanthin (−114.9), Andrographidine C (−101.8), myricetin (−99.96), Gingerenone -A (−93.9), Tinosporinone (−83.42), Geraniol (−62.87), Nootkatone (−62.4), Asarianin (−79.94), and Gamma sitosterol (−81.94) are main compounds from KK plants which may inhibit COVID-19 giving the better energy score compared to synthetic drugs. Based on the binding energy score, we suggest that these compounds can be tested against Coronavirus and used to develop effective antiviral drugs.


2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (11) ◽  
pp. 1155-1193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dejan Opsenica ◽  
Bogdan Solaja

The problem of endemic malaria continues unabated globally. Malaria affects 40 % of the global population, causing an estimated annual mortality of 1.5-2.7 million people. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 90 % of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa among infants under the age of five. While a vaccine against malaria continues to be elusive, chemotherapy remains the most viable alternative towards treatment of the disease. During last years, the situation has become urgent in many ways, but mainly because of the development of chloroquine-resistant (CQR) strains of Plasmodium falciparum (Pf). The discovery that artemisinin (ART, 1), an active principle of Artemisia annua L., expresses a significant antimalarial activity, especially against CQR strains, opened new approaches for combating malaria. Since the early 1980s, hundreds of semi-synthetic and synthetic peroxides have been developed and tested for their antimalarial activity, the results of which were extensively reviewed. In addition, in therapeutic practice, there is no reported case of drug resistance to these antimalarial peroxides. This review summarizes recent achievements in the area of peroxide drug development for malaria chemotherapy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 187 ◽  
pp. 01004
Author(s):  
Rungnattakan Ploenkutham ◽  
Preeyapa Sripromma ◽  
Suksan Amornraksa ◽  
Patchanee Yasurin ◽  
Aussama Soontrunnarudrungsri

Nowadays, population have more age and longer life than ancient people which the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the proportion of the global population will become 'Aging Society' during healthier lifestyles, new advance technologies especially in medical manufacture. This study was aimed to study attitude, behavior and opinion of elderly people towards herbal tea products and to optimize preparation, procedure and process of Asiatic Pennywort tea. According of the study, there are 100% of Thai people ever consume herbs and herbal tea, they consume as beverage. Half of consumer surveys are no chronic health conditions. Safety of product is the most factors that effect to purchasing decision. The consumers are agree (73%) in nutrition value that presented on label as it's clamed on the package. Result from this study shown that roasted and kneading process is highest mean score from consumer's preference 7.07±1.51 (P<0.05) that this method is significantly different in total phenolic content and Ferric reducing antioxidant potential assay but not in DPPH radical scavenging which is highest mean of second significantly level.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivair José Morais ◽  
Richard Costa Polveiro ◽  
Gabriel Medeiros Souza ◽  
Daniel Inserra Bortolin ◽  
Flávio Tetsuo Sassaki ◽  
...  

Abstract The World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020, the second pandemic of the twenty-first century. Expanding virus populations, such as that of SARS-CoV-2, accumulate a number of narrowly shared polymorphisms, imposing a confounding effect on traditional clustering methods. In this context, approaches that reduce the complexity of the sequence space occupied by the SARS-CoV-2 population are necessary for robust clustering. Here, we propose subdividing the global SARS-CoV-2 population into six well-defined subtypes and 10 poorly represented genotypes named tentative subtypes by focusing on the widely shared polymorphisms in nonstructural (nsp3, nsp4, nsp6, nsp12, nsp13 and nsp14) cistrons and structural (spike and nucleocapsid) and accessory (ORF8) genes. The six subtypes and the additional genotypes showed amino acid replacements that might have phenotypic implications. Notably, three mutations (one of them in the Spike protein) were responsible for the geographical segregation of subtypes. We hypothesize that the virus subtypes detected in this study are records of the early stages of SARS-CoV-2 diversification that were randomly sampled to compose the virus populations around the world. The genetic structure determined for the SARS-CoV-2 population provides substantial guidelines for maximizing the effectiveness of trials for testing candidate vaccines or drugs.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 3354
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Seyda Uras ◽  
Sherif S. Ebada ◽  
Michal Korinek ◽  
Amgad Albohy ◽  
Basma S. Abdulrazik ◽  
...  

In December 2020, the U.K. authorities reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) that a new COVID-19 variant, considered to be a variant under investigation from December 2020 (VUI-202012/01), was identified through viral genomic sequencing. Although several other mutants were previously reported, VUI-202012/01 proved to be about 70% more transmissible. Hence, the usefulness and effectiveness of the newly U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved COVID-19 vaccines against these new variants are doubtfully questioned. As a result of these unexpected mutants from COVID-19 and due to lack of time, much research interest is directed toward assessing secondary metabolites as potential candidates for developing lead pharmaceuticals. In this study, a marine-derived fungus Aspergillus terreus was investigated, affording two butenolide derivatives, butyrolactones I (1) and III (2), a meroterpenoid, terretonin (3), and 4-hydroxy-3-(3-methylbut-2-enyl)benzaldehyde (4). Chemical structures were unambiguously determined based on mass spectrometry and extensive 1D/2D NMR analyses experiments. Compounds (1–4) were assessed for their in vitro anti-inflammatory, antiallergic, and in silico COVID-19 main protease (Mpro) and elastase inhibitory activities. Among the tested compounds, only 1 revealed significant activities comparable to or even more potent than respective standard drugs, which makes butyrolactone I (1) a potential lead entity for developing a new remedy to treat and/or control the currently devastating and deadly effects of COVID-19 pandemic and elastase-related inflammatory complications.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Rehm ◽  
Guilherme Borges ◽  
Gerhard Gmel ◽  
Kathryn Graham ◽  
Bridget Grant ◽  
...  

Rehm, J., Borges, G., Gmel, G., Graham, K., Grant, B., Parry, C., Poznyak, V. & Room R. (2013). The comparative risk assessment for alcohol as part of the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study: What changed from the last study? International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 2(1), 1-5.  doi: 10.7895/ijadr.v2i1.132 (http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v2i1.132)In December 2012, the new results of the Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) for alcohol within the Global Burden of Disease and Injury (GBD) Study 2010 were presented at a joint meeting of the GBD Group and the journal Lancet at the Royal Society in London (Lim et al., 2012). At first glance, there do not appear to be many changes to alcohol consumption as a risk factor for death and disability: it is identified as the third most important risk factor, as it was in the last CRA (World Health Organization, 2009). The burden of disease attributable to alcohol had increased, compared to the 2004 estimate (Rehm, Mathers et al., 2009), but this could be due to an increase in global population, or to variations in the methodologies behind the 2004 and 2010 estimates.


2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 788-790
Author(s):  
E. Mahgoub

Health for all is facing many challenges at present, such as increasing global population, the widening gap between the rich and poor and the inequitable distribution of health services. The World Health Organization has always recognized that the achievement of health for all required the input of many partners, not simply the ministries of health. This paper outlines the role academia and professional associations can play in supporting health for all. It discusses, in particular, the areas of intervention, such as training human resources, planning and setting health priorities and strategies and conducting health systems research


PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e11590
Author(s):  
Aweke Mulu ◽  
Mulugeta Gajaa ◽  
Haregewoin Bezu Woldekidan ◽  
Jerusalem Fekadu W/mariam

The newly occurred SARS-CoV-2 caused a leading pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Up to now it has infected more than one hundred sixty million and killed more than three million people according to 14 May 2021 World Health Organization report. So far, different types of studies have been conducted to develop an anti-viral drug for COVID-19 with no success yet. As part of this, silico were studied to discover and introduce COVID-19 antiviral drugs and results showed that protease inhibitors could be very effective in controlling. This study aims to investigate the binding affinity of three curcumin derived polyphenols against COVID-19 the main protease (Mpro), binding pocket, and identification of important residues for interaction. In this study, molecular modeling, auto-dock coupled with molecular dynamics simulations were performed to analyze the conformational, and stability of COVID-19 binding pocket with diferuloylmethane, demethoxycurcumin, and bisdemethoxycurcumin. All three compounds have shown binding affinity −39, −89 and −169.7, respectively. Demethoxycurcumin and bisdemethoxycurcumin showed an optimum binding affinity with target molecule and these could be one of potential ligands for COVID-19 therapy. And also, COVID-19 main protease binding pocket binds with the interface region by one hydrogen bond. Moreover, the MD simulation parameters indicated that demethoxycurcumin and bisdemethoxycurcumin were stable during the simulation run. These findings can be used as a baseline to develop therapeutics with curcumin derived polyphenols against COVID-19.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0258669
Author(s):  
Baljeet Singh ◽  
Shamal Shivneel Chand ◽  
Hong Chen

Background High prevalence of tobacco smoking among young students remains a serious health concern given the positive association between smoking and NCDs. More recently, some studies also noted young smokers were more likely to get infected with COVID-19 compared to non-smokers. This study aims to assess the factors that influence smoking uptake among young students in Samoa. Findings from this study will provide valuable insight to policymakers and health authorities on policies and strategies to combat smoking among youth in Samoa and the Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Methods The 2017 Global Youth Tobacco Survey data of Samoa, available from the World Health Organization is used in the analysis. We use the multinominal logistic model to investigate the effects of socio-economic and demographics factors on young students’ uptake of smoking in Samoa. Result The main findings of this study indicate that sex, age, friendship, parental smoking, family discussion, outside influence, pocket money, and mother’s education are important determinants of tobacco smoking initiation among youths in Samoa. Conclusion Our findings contribute towards the evidence of the imperative health impact of friends, parents, and public smoking on students in Samoa. This warrants strategies that are effective in discouraging parents from smoking and implement measures that prevent smoking in public places. Moreover, educational efforts, particularly those that encourage more discussion at home settings on the harmful effects of smoking are strongly recommended. Parents are strongly encouraged to regularly monitor children’s spending behaviour.


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