Background:
SARS-CoV-2 has caused more than fifty three million people worldwide infected and almost one million and four hundred thousand deaths. Currently, the appropriate therapeutic drugs are not yet available to treat diseases caused by this coronaviruses (CoVs) infection. It is due to the fact that discoveries and developments of new medication require a relatively long time. The alternative solutions for this viral infection is by utilizing medicinal plants-based bioactive compounds as therapeutic agents against COVID-19.
Methods:
In this review, a molecular docking study was a method that used to determine the potential of some bioactive compounds from medicinal plants as therapeutics agents against COVID-19. The results of this review still require further investigation to clinically validate either in vitro or in vivo, to find the effective antiviral drugs from medicinal plants for COVID-19 treatment.
Results:
From a total of 60 identified of medicinal plants, 50 of them have possible effects as therapeutics agents against particular target proteins encoded by the CoVs genes such as Nsp1, Nsp3 (Nsp3b, Nsp3c, PLpro and Nsp3e), Nsp7_Nsp8, Nsp9-Nsp10, Nsp14-Nsp16 complexes, 3CLpro, E protein, ORF7a, Spike (S) glycoprotein, C-terminal RNA binding domain (CRBD), N-terminal RNA binding domain (NRBD), helicase and RdRp. The most common of the bioactive compounds from the medicinal plants as therapeutics agents for COVID-19 treatment were flavonoids compounds.
Conclusion:
The medicinal plants can serve as starting points for therapeutics agent development against some target proteins of SARS-CoV-2. Nevertheless, the results are in need for clinical validation, either through in vitro or in vivo in COVID-19 treatment.