Antiviral Potential of Plants against COVID-19 during Outbreaks—An Update

Abstract

Several human diseases are caused by viruses, including cancer, Type I diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and hepatocellular carcinoma. In the past, people have suffered greatly from viral diseases such as polio, mumps, measles, dengue fever, SARS, MERS, AIDS, chikungunya fever, encephalitis, and influenza. Recently, COVID-19 has become a pandemic in most parts of the world. Although vaccines are available to fight the infection, their safety and clinical trial data are still questionable. Social distancing, isolation, the use of sanitizer, and personal productive strategies have been implemented to prevent the spread of the virus. Moreover, the search for a potential therapeutic molecule is ongoing. Based on experiences with outbreaks of SARS and MERS, many research studies reveal the potential of medicinal herbs/plants or chemical compounds extracted from them to counteract the effects of these viral diseases. COVID-19′s current status includes a decrease in infection rates as a result of large-scale vaccination program implementation by several countries. But it is still very close and needs to boost people’s natural immunity in a cost-effective way through phytomedicines because many underdeveloped countries do not have their own vaccination facilities. In this article, phytomedicines as plant parts or plant-derived metabolites that can affect the entry of a virus or its infectiousness inside hosts are described. Finally, it is concluded that the therapeutic potential of medicinal plants must be analyzed and evaluated entirely in the control of COVID-19 in cases of uncontrollable SARS infection.

Myrtucommulones and Related Acylphloroglucinols from Myrtaceae as a Promising Source of Multitarget SARS-CoV-2 Cycle Inhibitors

“…Plant extracts and plant-derived secondary metabolites have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity and can exhibit properties against SARS-CoV-2 replication [ 5 , 39 , 40 , 41 ]. Here, chemometric analyses suggest that myrtucommulones, more prevalent in the multitarget species E. mosenii and E. prasina , may be the main contributor to the strong inhibitory virus effect exhibited by these extracts.…”

“…Molecular docking analyses revealed that the bioactive compound gingerol, extracted from Zingiber officinale (Zingiberaceae family), prevents the entry and fusion of coronavirus by blocking the TMPRSS2 receptor [43,44]. Flavonoids such as kaempferol, luteolin, sulforaphane, quercetin, and cryptotanshinone, found in different plant families, also exhibit inhibitory Plant extracts and plant-derived secondary metabolites have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity and can exhibit properties against SARS-CoV-2 replication [5,[39][40][41]. Here, chemometric analyses suggest that myrtucommulones, more prevalent in the multitarget species E. mosenii and E. prasina, may be the main contributor to the strong inhibitory virus effect exhibited by these extracts.…”

Conocimiento de enfermedades virales terapéuticas: aplicación de SWCNT en la administración de fármacos

“…El distanciamiento físico obligatorio, la higiene de manos y, posiblemente, el uso adecuado de equipo de protección personal, incluido el uso de una mascarilla quirúrgica, siguen siendo la forma más efectiva de controlar la propagación de la enfermedad, y la mayoría de los países que adoptaron tales medidas informaron cierto éxito en frenar la propagación de la enfermedad [18][19][20][21]. Actualmente existe un tratamiento o vacuna no confiable disponible para combatir el SARS-CoV-2 [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39].…”

Novel analogues of a nonnucleoside SARS-CoV-2 RdRp inhibitor as potential antivirotics

“…The usability of NAIs may largely depend on the metabolic activation, and they also compete with the intracellular pool of natural nucleoside triphosphates (NTPs). Nonnucleotide analogue inhibitors (NNAIs) do not face these challenges as they bind to both active but also allosteric sites of the RdRp, and therefore they represent a promising NAI alternative [ 12 ].…”