In-silico screening of plant-derived antivirals against main protease, 3CL(pro) and endoribonuclease, NSP15 proteins of SARS-CoV-2

Sharma, Aniket; Goyal, Shubham; Yadav, Arvind Kumar; Kumar, Pawan; Gupta, Lovely

Novel Coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has developed a pandemic condition all over the world. The virus is highly infectious and spreads by human to human local transmission mode. Till date, there is no vaccination or drugs been approved for the treatment by the World Health Organisation. Henceforth, the discovery of the potential drugs is an urgent and utmost requirement for the medical fraternity. Since, the side effects of plant-derived compounds will be lower compared to synthetic/chemical drugs. The Main protease (3CL(pro) or NSP5) and endoribonuclease (NSP15) proteins are necessity for viral replication and its survival in the host cell. In the present study, in-silico approach of drug development was used to search for potential antiviral plant-derived compounds as inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 replication proteins. Eight plant-derived compounds of which the antiviral activity was known and available, and two reported drugs against SARS-CoV-2 selected for the molecular docking analysis. The docking results suggested that bisdemethoxycurcumin, demethoxycurcumin, scutellarin, quercetin and myricetin showed least binding energy, i.e., greater than −6.5 Kcal/mol against 3CL(pro) and endoribonuclease of SARS-CoV-2. Further studies of ADME-Tox and bioavailability of drugs were also performed that exhibited efficient parameters of drug likeness. Molecular dynamics simulation calculations were performed for the most negative binding affinity of the compound to evaluate the dynamic behavior,and stability of protein-ligand complex. Our findings suggest that these compounds could be potential inhibitors of SARS‐CoV-2 main protease and endoribonuclease. However, further in-vitro and pre-clinical experiments would validate the potential inhibitors of SARS‐CoV‐2 proteins.