Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19), a viral disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was declared a global pandemic by WHO in 2020. In this scenario, SARS-CoV-2 main protease (COVID-19 M
pro
), an enzyme mainly involved in viral replication and transcription is identified as a crucial target for drug discovery. Traditionally used medicinal plants contain a large amount of bioactives and pave a new path to develop drugs and medications for COVID-19. The present study was aimed to examine the potential of
Emblica officinalis
(amla),
Phyllanthus niruri
Linn. (bhumi amla) and
Tinospora cordifolia
(giloy) bioactive compounds to inhibit the enzymatic activity of COVID-19 M
pro
. In total, 96 bioactive compounds were selected and docked with COVID-19 M
pro
and further validated by molecular dynamics study. From the docking and molecular dynamics study, it was revealed that the bioactives namely amritoside, apigenin-6-C-glucosyl7-O-glucoside, pectolinarin and astragalin showed better binding affinities with COVID-19 M
pro
. Drug-likeness, ADEMT and bioactivity score prediction of best drug candidates were evaluated by DruLiTo, pkCSM and Molinspiration servers, respectively. Overall, the
in silico
results confirmed that the validated bioactives could be exploited as promising COVID-19 M
pro
inhibitors.
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