Coronaviruses are responsible for a growing economic, social and mortality burden, as the causative agent of diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) and COVID-19. However, there is a lack of effective antiviral agents for many coronavirus strains. Naturally existing compounds provide a wealth of chemical diversity, including antiviral activity, and thus may have utility as therapeutic agents against coronaviral infections. The PubMed database was searched for papers including the keywords coronavirus, SARS or MERS, as well as traditional medicine, herbal, remedy or plants, with 55 primary research articles identified. The overwhelming majority of publications focussed on polar compounds. Compounds that show promise for the inhibition of coronavirus in humans include scutellarein, silvestrol, tryptanthrin, saikosaponin B 2 , quercetin, myricetin, caffeic acid, psoralidin, isobavachalcone, and lectins such as griffithsin. Other compounds such as lycorine may be suitable if a therapeutic level of antiviral activity can be achieved without exceeding toxic plasma concentrations. It was noted that the most promising small molecules identified as coronavirus inhibitors contained a conjugated fused ring structure with the majority being classified as being polyphenols.

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Short-wavelength near-infrared (SW-NIR) (700-1100 nm) spectra of aqueous solutions of sucrose, D-glucose, and D-fructose were monitored with respect to change in temperature and sugar concentration. Sugar OH and CH related vibrations were identified by analysis of the spectra of sugar solutions in deuterium oxide (D2O), and of sucrose-d8 solutions in D2O. Absorption spectra were explained in terms of the second and third overtones of OH stretching vibrations and the third overtone of CH2 and CH stretchings. In deuterated solutions, CH and CH2 higher overtone vibration bands became apparent. The major spectral effect of decreased temperature or increased sugar concentration was a decrease in absorbance at 960 nm and an increase in absorbance at 984 nm, interpreted as an increase in the degree of H bonding. Partial least-squares (PLS) calibrations on sugar concentrations (with spectra collected at several sample temperatures) relied strongly on the 910 nm sugar CH related bands, whereas calibrations on temperature depended equally on all OH associated vibrations (750, 840, 960, and 985 nm).