scholarly journals Repurposing FDA-approved phytomedicines, natural products, antivirals and cell protectives against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) RNA-dependent RNA polymerase

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e10480
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Kandeel ◽  
Yukio Kitade ◽  
Abdullah Almubarak

Following the recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 or coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), drug discovery and vaccine design to combat this fatal infection are critical. In this study, an essential enzyme in the SARS-CoV-2 replication machinery, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDRP), is targeted in a virtual screening assay using a set of 1,664 FDA-approved drugs, including sets of botanical and synthetic derivatives. A set of 22 drugs showed a high docking score of >−7. Notably, approximately one-third of the top hits were either from natural products or biological molecules. The FDA-approved phytochemicals were sennosides, digoxin, asiaticoside, glycyrrhizin, neohesperidin, taxifolin, quercetin and aloin. These approved natural products and phytochemicals are used as general tonics, antioxidants, cell protectives, and immune stimulants (nadid, thymopentin, asiaticoside, glycyrrhizin) and in other miscellaneous systemic or topical applications. A comprehensive analysis was conducted on standard precision and extra precision docking, two-step molecular dynamics simulations, binding energy calculations and a post dynamics analysis. The results reveal that two drugs, docetaxel and neohesperidin, showed strong binding profiles with SARS CoV-2 RdRP. These results can be used as a primer for further drug discovery studies in the treatment of COVID-19. This initiative repurposes safe FDA-approved drugs against COVID-19 RdRP, providing a rapid channel for the discovery and application of new anti-CoV therapeutics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (6) ◽  
pp. 864-873 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudramani Pokhrel ◽  
Prem Chapagain ◽  
Jessica Siltberg-Liberles

Introduction. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has taken humanity off guard. Following an outbreak of SARS-CoV in 2002, and MERS-CoV about 10 years later, SARS-CoV-2 is the third coronavirus in less than 20 years to cross the species barrier and start spreading by human-to-human transmission. It is the most infectious of the three, currently causing the COVID-19 pandemic. No treatment has been approved for COVID-19. We previously proposed targets that can serve as binding sites for antiviral drugs for multiple coronaviruses, and here we set out to find current drugs that can be repurposed as COVID-19 therapeutics. Aim. To identify drugs against COVID-19, we performed an in silico virtual screen with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs targeting the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP), a critical enzyme for coronavirus replication. Methodology. Initially, no RdRP structure of SARS-CoV-2 was available. We performed basic sequence and structural analysis to determine if RdRP from SARS-CoV was a suitable replacement. We performed molecular dynamics simulations to generate multiple starting conformations that were used for the in silico virtual screen. During this work, a structure of RdRP from SARS-CoV-2 became available and was also included in the in silico virtual screen. Results. The virtual screen identified several drugs predicted to bind in the conserved RNA tunnel of RdRP, where many of the proposed targets were located. Among these candidates, quinupristin is particularly interesting because it is expected to bind across the RNA tunnel, blocking access from both sides and suggesting that it has the potential to arrest viral replication by preventing viral RNA synthesis. Quinupristin is an antibiotic that has been in clinical use for two decades and is known to cause relatively minor side effects. Conclusion. Quinupristin represents a potential anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic. At present, we have no evidence that this drug is effective against SARS-CoV-2 but expect that the biomedical community will expeditiously follow up on our in silico findings.



Author(s):  
Seref Gul ◽  
Onur Ozcan ◽  
sinan asar ◽  
Alper Okyar ◽  
Ibrahim Barıs ◽  
...  

<div>We performed repurposing of FDA approved drugs against SARS-CoV-2 3 chymotrypsin like protease and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. During the screening, 3948 drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to target the active site of 3CLpro and nsp8 binding sites of RdRp and, in turn, disturb SARS-CoV-2 life cycle in host cell. As a result of molecular docking and molecular</div><div>dynamics simulations, several drugs with high binding affinity to both SARS-Cov-2 3CLpro and RdRp targets were identified. While drugs such as tetracycline and its derivatives, dihydroergotamine, ergotamine, dutasteride, nelfinavir, paliperidone, and conivaptan were identified to bind SARS-Cov-2 3CLpro; tipranavir, nelfinavir, dihydroergotamine, conivaptan, dutasterid and eltrombopag were found to bind nsp8 binding site of RdRp. Notably, further analysis of the results showed that ergotamine,</div><div>dihydroergotamine, conivaptan, paliperidone, and tipranavir can bind to both enzymes with high affinity. Since these drugs are well tolerated, cost-effective and widely used, our study suggested that tetracycline and its derivatives, dutasteride, ergotamine, bromocriptine, tipranavir, conivaptan, paliperidone, eltrombopag drugs have the potential to be used alone or in combination as adjuvant for</div><div>the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.</div>



2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seref Gul ◽  
Onur Ozcan ◽  
sinan asar ◽  
Alper Okyar ◽  
Ibrahim Barıs ◽  
...  

<p>Despite drastic strict measures, the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 is ongoing all around the world. There is no vaccine developed against this virus and no approved medication to be used for the treatment of COVID-2019. In this study, we performed <i>in silico</i> screening against two critical enzymes (3C-like protease (3CL<sup>pro</sup>) and viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp)), which play important roles in the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle, by using the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs. Our docking simulations enable us to identify several hundred drugs that have high binding affinity for each target. To evaluate persistence of the drugs’ binding to each target near to physiological conditions we selected well tolerated and widely used ones for the molecular dynamics simulations. Simulations results revealed that following drugs were stably interacting with SARS-Cov-2 3CL<sup>pro</sup>: tetracycline and its derivatives, dihydroergotamine, ergotamine, dutasteride, nelfinavir, and paliperidone. A similar analysis with RdRp showed that eltrombopag, tipranavir, ergotamine, and conivaptan were bound with the enzyme during the simulation with high binding energy. Detailed analysis of docking results suggested that ergotamine, dihydroergotamine, bromocriptine, dutasteride, conivaptan, paliperidone, and tipranavir can bind to both enzymes with high affinity. Since these drugs are well tolerated, cost effective and widely used, our study suggested that they have potential to be used in clinical trial for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.</p>



Author(s):  
OSMAR NASCIMENTO SILVA ◽  
Bruno Neves ◽  
Lucimar Rosseto ◽  
Rodrigo Moura ◽  
Hamilton Napolitano ◽  
...  

COVID-19 was characterized as a pandemic regarding its rapid international spread and severity on March 2020. The Coronaviridae family receives this name regarding the organization of the spike glycoprotein located in the envelope, which resembles a stellar corona when observed under a microscope. Coronaviruses undergo frequent mutations in their genome due to errors made by RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). The SARS-CoV-2 was characterized by high infectivity and person to person transmission, with an incubation period of up to fourteen days. Potent antiviral activities of several natural products such as alkaloids, chalcones, triterpenoids have been reported but with unconfirmed efficacy or safety in the clinic as well as the complete underlying mechanisms. Also, CQ, HCQ and Ivermectin, remdesivir, lopinavir, ritonavir, favipiravir and pegylated interferon with ribavirin have been tested to develop both an effective therapy and a vaccine to treat COVID-19.  This study presents the antiviral effects of the natural products against SARS-CoV, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 showing that Lycorine, Emodin, Promazine, Saikosaponins B2, Silvestrol, Cepharanthine, Fangchinoline, Tetrandrine, Caffeic acid, Chlorogenic acid, Gallic acid and Emetine are a good candidates on treatment of coronaviruses infections.



2021 ◽  
pp. 111544
Author(s):  
Zahra Molavi ◽  
Sara Razi ◽  
Seyed Amir Mirmotalebisohi ◽  
Amirjafar Adibi ◽  
Marzieh Sameni ◽  
...  


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 3461
Author(s):  
Vasiliki Daikopoulou ◽  
Panagiotis Apostolou ◽  
Sofia Mourati ◽  
Ioanna Vlachou ◽  
Maria Gougousi ◽  
...  

Despite the fact that COVID-19 vaccines are already available on the market, there have not been any effective FDA-approved drugs to treat this disease. There are several already known drugs that through drug repositioning have shown an inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. These drugs are included in the family of nucleoside analogues. In our efforts, we synthesized a group of new nucleoside analogues, which are modified at the sugar moiety that is replaced by a quinazoline entity. Different nucleobase derivatives are used in order to increase the inhibition. Five new nucleoside analogues were evaluated with in vitro assays for targeting polymerase of SARS-CoV-2.



2021 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shabana Bibi ◽  
Mohammad Mehedi Hasan ◽  
Yuan-Bing Wang ◽  
Stavros P. Papadakos ◽  
Hong Yu

Background: SARS-CoV-2, which emerged in Wuhan, China, is a new global threat that has killed millions of people and continues to do so. This pandemic has not only threatened human life but has also triggered economic downturns across the world. Researchers have made significant strides in discovering molecular insights into SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis and developing vaccines, but there is still no successful cure for SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. Objective: The present study has proposed a drug-repositioning pipeline for the design and discovery of an effective fungal-derived bioactive metabolite as a drug candidate against SARS-CoV-2. Methods: Fungal derivative “Cordycepin” was selected for this study to investigate the inhibitory properties against RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) (PDB ID: 6M71) of SARS-CoV-2. The pharmacological profile, intermolecular interactions, binding energy, and stability of the compound were determined utilizing cheminformatic approaches. Subsequently, molecular dynamic simulation was performed to better understand the binding mechanism of cordycepin to RdRp. Results: The pharmacological data and retrieved molecular dynamics simulations trajectories suggest excellent drug-likeliness and greater structural stability of cordycepin, while the catalytic residues (Asp760, Asp761), as well as other active site residues (Trp617, Asp618, Tyr619, Trp800, Glu811) of RdRp, showed better stability during the overall simulation span. Conclusion: Promising results of pharmacological investigation along with molecular simulations revealed that cordycepin exhibited strong inhibitory potential against SARS-CoV-2 polymerase enzyme (RdRp). Hence, cordycepin should be highly recommended to test in a laboratory to confirm its inhibitory potential against the SARS-CoV-2 polymerase enzyme (RdRp).



2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (28) ◽  
pp. 5363-5388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ananda Kumar Konreddy ◽  
Grandhe Usha Rani ◽  
Kyeong Lee ◽  
Yongseok Choi

: Drug repurposing is a safe and successful pathway to speed up the novel drug discovery and development processes compared with de novo drug discovery approaches. Drug repurposing uses FDA-approved drugs and drugs that failed in clinical trials, which have detailed information on potential toxicity, formulation, and pharmacology. Technical advancements in the informatics, genomics, and biological sciences account for the major success of drug repurposing in identifying secondary indications of existing drugs. Drug repurposing is playing a vital role in filling the gap in the discovery of potential antibiotics. Bacterial infections emerged as an ever-increasing global public health threat by dint of multidrug resistance to existing drugs. This raises the urgent need of development of new antibiotics that can effectively fight multidrug-resistant bacterial infections (MDRBIs). The present review describes the key role of drug repurposing in the development of antibiotics during 2016–2017 and of the details of recently FDA-approved antibiotics, pipeline antibiotics, and antibacterial properties of various FDA-approved drugs of anti-cancer, anti-fungal, anti-hyperlipidemia, antiinflammatory, anti-malarial, anti-parasitic, anti-viral, genetic disorder, immune modulator, etc. Further, in view of combination therapies with the existing antibiotics, their potential for new implications for MDRBIs is discussed. The current review may provide essential data for the development of quick, safe, effective, and novel antibiotics for current needs and suggest acuity in its effective implications for inhibiting MDRBIs by repurposing existing drugs.



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