The broad-spectrum antiviral recommendations for drug discovery against COVID-19

Abstract

Despite to outbreaks of highly pathogenic beta and alpha coronaviruses including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and human coronavirus, the newly emerged 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) is considered as a lethal zoonotic virus due to its deadly respiratory syndrome and high mortality rate among the human. Globally, more than 3,517,345 cases have been confirmed with 243,401 deaths due to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) caused by COVID-19. The antiviral drug discovery activity is required to control the persistence of COVID-19 circulation and the potential of the future emergence of coronavirus. However, the present review aims to highlight the important antiviral approaches, including interferons, ribavirin, mycophenolic acids, ritonavir, lopinavir, inhibitors, and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to provoke the nonstructural proteins and deactivate the structural and essential host elements of the virus to control and treat the infection of COVID-19 by inhibiting the viral entry, viral RNA replication and suppressing the viral protein expression. Moreover, the present review investigates the epidemiology, diagnosis, structure, and replication of COVID-19 for better understanding. It is recommended that these proteases, inhibitors, and antibodies could be a good therapeutic option in drug discovery to control the newly emerged coronavirus. HIGHLIGHTS COVID-19 has more than 79.5% identical sequence to SARS-CoV and a 96% identical sequence of the whole genome of bat coronaviruses. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), renal failure, and septic shock are the possible clinical symptoms associated with COVID-19. Different antivirals, including interferons, ribavirin, lopinavir, and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) could be the potent therapeutic agents against COVID-19. The initial clinical trials on hydroquinone in combination with azithromycin showed an admirable result in the reduction of COVID-19. The overexpression of inflammation response, cytokine dysregulation, and induction of apoptosis could be an well-organized factors to reduce the pathogenicity of COVID-19.

Marine sulfated polysaccharides as potential antiviral drug candidates to treat Corona Virus disease (COVID-19)

“…Fortunately, social distancing and quarantine/self-isolation is the basis for the prevention of virus spread, so far. Currently, the repurposing of antivirals [ 5 , 6 ] has been the possible strategy to prevent the mild and moderate COVID-19 cases [ 7 , 8 ]. Most of the clinical trials involving COVID-19 treatments and vaccines preparations is on the raise, with encouraging results and outcomes.…”

“…The interaction of these virus particles and cell surface receptors facilitates virus entry. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the glycosylated S proteins present at the surface facilitates the viral entry via binding to ACE2 host cell receptor [ 5 , 19 , 20 ]. ACE2 transcripts are mostly distributed in organs such as heart, lungs, kidney, testis, intestine and thus being the target for SARS-CoV-2 infection.…”

Material Basis and Mechanism of Chansu Injection for COVID-19 Treatment Based on Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking Technology

“…Severe cases display excessive inflammatory responses, leading to severe progressive pneumonia and even acute respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock, coagulation disorders, and multi-organ failure [13,14]. Owing to its severity and rapid progression, there is an urgent need to develop novel medicines for the emerging coronavirus [15].…”

New insights on possible vaccine development against SARS-CoV-2

“…The studies observed that symptoms of COVID-19 are exactly related to the symptoms of patients that were suffering from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003 [ 5 ]. However, shortness of breath (respiratory infection), cough, itching, and muscle pain are major coronavirus associated symptoms which caused acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and ultimately led to death [ [6] , [7] , [8] ]. A respiratory viral infection is a worldwide wellbeing concern nowadays that caused hazardous respiratory contamination and extreme pneumonia among people [ 9 , 10 ].…”

“…The accumulated data revealed that COVID-19 is a single-stranded positive sense-RNA virus that holds a sizable RNA genome of about 29.88 kb with 12 open reading frames (ORF) and belongs to the β-group of coronavirus [ 8 , 11 ]. The genome-based activity analysis of COVID-19 revealed that it is caused by SARS-CoV-2 which shared over 90% matching structure to bat genome and 89.10% nucleotide resemblance with previously reported beta-coronavirus named as SARS-CoV-1 [ 12 , 13 ].…”