Repurposing cefuroxime for treatment of COVID-19: a scoping review of in silico studies

Abstract

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of Coronavirus disease 19 , is a novel human Coronavirus that is responsible for about 300,000 deaths worldwide. To date, there is no confirmed treatment or vaccine prevention strategy against COVID-19. Due to the urgent need for effective treatment, drug repurposing is regarded as the immediate option. Potential drugs can often be identified via in silico drug screening experiments. Consequently, there has been an explosion of in silico experiments to find drug candidates or investigate anecdotal claims. One drug with several anecdotal accounts of benefit is Cefuroxime. The aim of this study was to identify and summarize in silico evidence for possible activity of Cefuroxime against SARS-CoV-2.To this end, we performed a scoping review of literature of in silico drug repurposing experiments for SARS-CoV-2 using PRISMA-ScR. We searched Medline, Embase, Scopus, Web of Knowledge, and Google Scholar for original studies published between 1st Feb, 2020 and 15th May, 2020 that screened drug libraries, and identified Cefuroxime as a top-ranked potential inhibitor drug against SARS-CoV-2 proteins. Six studies were identified. These studies reported Cefuroxime as a potential inhibitor of 3 key SARS-CoV-2 proteins; main protease, RNA dependent RNA polymerase, and ACE2-Spike complex. We provided a summary of the methodology and findings of the identified studies. Our scoping review identified significant in silico evidence that Cefuroxime may be a potential multitarget inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2. Further in vitro and in vivo studies are required to evaluate the potential of Cefuroxime for COVID-19.

The COVID-19 Pandemic - A Global Public Health Crisis: A Brief Overview Regarding Pharmacological Interventions

“…Accordingly, there has been a blast in drug repurposing experiments to invent innovative medicines as aspirants and research studies regarding circumstantial findings. One second-generation cephalosporin -Cefuroxime has been spotted with quite a lot of anecdotal benefits in the treatment of COVID-19 [51]. In that way, one scoping review reported that cefuroxime reveals promising efficacy in opposing three significant COVID-19 proteins necessary for replication in drug repurposing experimentations.…”

“…In that way, one scoping review reported that cefuroxime reveals promising efficacy in opposing three significant COVID-19 proteins necessary for replication in drug repurposing experimentations. In this manner, cefuroxime possibly possesses auspicious multi-target pharmacodynamics that can help us to combat the current pandemic [51]. Additionally, cefuroxime was approved by the US FDA in 1998.…”

“…Additionally, cefuroxime was approved by the US FDA in 1998. Subsequently, it has a long history for clinical use and post-market-surveillance that raises it as a reliable alternative for additional research studies in the global battle against COVID-19 -the current highest threat of human existence [51,55].…”

Synthesis of exfoliated multilayer graphene and its putative interactions with SARS-CoV-2 virus investigated through computational studies

“…The virus contains singlepositive-strand RNA (ribonucleic acid) genome protected by the four structural proteins named as nucleocapsid (N), matrix (M), envelope (E), and spike (S) (Durojaiye et al, 2020). In the last two decades, two mutated coronaviruses cause severe epidemics named as middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) (de Wit et al, 2016;Wahedi et al, 2020).…”

In Silico Mutagenesis Based Remodeling of SARs-CoV-1 Peptide (ATLQAIAS) to Inhibit SARs-CoV-2: Structural-dynamics and Free Energy Calculations

“…The SARS-CoV-2 has a genome of ~ 30 kb and is responsible for encoding the whole proteome of the pathogen. Both the structural and non-structural protein-coding region and accessory protein-coding region are the major parts of the intact coding RNA [13]. The four structural proteins constituting the main envelope of the virus, and eight accessory proteins are encoded by the genes located on the 3′-terminus.…”