Microbial Metabolites: The Emerging Hotspot of Antiviral Compounds as Potential Candidates to Avert Viral Pandemic Alike COVID-19

Abstract

The present global COVID-19 pandemic caused by the noble pleomorphic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has created a vulnerable situation in the global healthcare and economy. In this pandemic situation, researchers all around the world are trying their level best to find suitable therapeutics from various sources to combat against the SARS-CoV-2. To date, numerous bioactive compounds from different sources have been tested to control many viral diseases. However, microbial metabolites are advantageous for drug development over metabolites from other sources. We herein retrieved and reviewed literatures from PubMed, Scopus and Google relevant to antiviral microbial metabolites by searching with the keywords “antiviral microbial metabolites,” “microbial metabolite against virus,” “microorganism with antiviral activity,” “antiviral medicine from microbial metabolite,” “antiviral bacterial metabolites,” “antiviral fungal metabolites,” “antiviral metabolites from microscopic algae’ and so on. For the same purpose, the keywords “microbial metabolites against COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2” and “plant metabolites against COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2” were used. Only the full text literatures available in English and pertinent to the topic have been included and those which are not available as full text in English and pertinent to antiviral or anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity were excluded. In this review, we have accumulated microbial metabolites that can be used as antiviral agents against a broad range of viruses including SARS-CoV-2. Based on this concept, we have included 330 antiviral microbial metabolites so far available to date in the data bases and were previously isolated from fungi, bacteria and microalgae. The microbial source, chemical nature, targeted viruses, mechanism of actions and IC50/EC50 values of these metabolites are discussed although mechanisms of actions of many of them are not yet elucidated. Among these antiviral microbial metabolites, some compounds might be very potential against many other viruses including coronaviruses. However, these potential microbial metabolites need further research to be developed as effective antiviral drugs. This paper may provide the scientific community with the possible secret of microbial metabolites that could be an effective source of novel antiviral drugs to fight against many viruses including SARS-CoV-2 as well as the future viral pandemics.

Secondary Metabolites Produced by Plant Growth-Promoting Bacterial Endophytes

“…Flavonoids such as quercetin, hespertin and naringin show anti-viral activities [ 123 ], and apigenin, vitexin, and their derivatives have been shown to be effective against hepatitis C virus, herpes simplex virus 1(HSV-1), human hepatitis A, B, and C, rhesus rotavirus (RRV), and influenza viruses [ 124 ]. As a result of the rich metabolic potential of endophytes, there is an emerging interest in the development and use of microbial secondary metabolites as anti-viral agents [ 125 ]. To find anti-viral compounds with activities against SARS-CoV2, endophytic bacteria were isolated from various tissues of 16 medicinal plants at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh.…”

Microbial Metabolites as Ligands to Xenobiotic Receptors: Chemical Mimicry as Potential Drugs of the Future

“…Various microbially derived metabolites serve as ligands to xenobiotic nuclear receptors. Microbial metabolites with host protective properties (e.g., intestinal inflammation/obesity and short-chain fatty acids, indole metabolites), per se, have been proposed as sources for developing new drugs (Giddings and Newman 2013, Saha, Rajpal et al 2016, Stringlis, Zhang et al 2018, Descamps, Herrmann et al 2019, Raihan, Rabbee et al 2021, Ramírez-Rendon, Passari et al 2022). The use of purified microbial metabolites as drugs has had mixed results.…”

Neurological disorders of COVID-19: insights to applications of natural products from plants and microorganisms

“…Based on cell culture assays, an anti-parasitic microbial product named ivermectin could inhibit the RdRp of SARS-CoV-2 with an IC 50 of 2.2–2.8 μM (Heidary and Gharebaghi 2020 ) and the clinical trials of ivermectin is in progress ( www.ClinicalTrials.gov -NCT04390022, NCT04602507). Recently Raihan et al (Raihan et al 2021 ) reported a comprehensive review on antiviral microbial metabolites, their classification and the viral targets. According to their report, fungi are responsible for 67% of microbial derived antivirals followed by bacteria (28%).…”