Identification of multipotent drugs for COVID-19 therapeutics with the evaluation of their SARS-CoV2 inhibitory activity

Kumar, Sugandh; Singh, Bharati; Kumari, Pratima; Kumar, Preethy V.; Agnihotri, Geetanjali; Khan, Shaheerah; Kant Beuria, Tushar; Hussain Syed, Gulam; Dixit, Anshuman

The SARS-CoV2 is a highly contagious pathogen that causes COVID-19 disease. It has affected millions of people globally with an average lethality of ∼3%. There is an urgent need of drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. In the current studies, we have used bioinformatics techniques to screen the FDA approved drugs against nine SARS-CoV2 proteins to identify drugs for repurposing. Additionally, we analyzed if the identified molecules can also affect the human proteins whose expression in lung changed during SARS-CoV2 infection. Targeting such genes may also be a beneficial strategy to curb disease manifestation. We have identified 74 molecules that can bind to various SARS-CoV2 and human host proteins. We experimentally validated our in-silico predictions using vero E6 cells infected with SARS-CoV2 virus. Interestingly, many of our predicted molecules viz. capreomycin, celecoxib, mefloquine, montelukast, and nebivolol showed good activity (IC50) against SARS-CoV2. We hope that these studies may help in the development of new therapeutic options for the treatment of COVID-19.