Abstract


Research Report
UNDERSTANDING SARS AND MERS FOR TARGET-SPECIFIC DRUG DISCOVERY AGAINST SARS-CoV-2: A REVIEW

Upasana Rai, Sahana Mukherjee and Shoma Paul Nandi

Pages: 42-52

Abstract:

The pandemic COVID-19 caused by the newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 is a challenge to our society and scientists. Keeping severity of pandemic at front, pace for vaccine development has increased drastically; almost 10 vaccines are in phase-III. It requires fast scientific discovery and data generation to compete with the speed of viral spread. This paper is accumulation of small efforts and scattered knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 virology and other pandemics due to coronavirus. No drug has been approved so far for COVID-19 and only a few for SARS and MERS. The ongoing trails are testing random drugs from databases due to urgency. This global public health crisis of the present generation requires high volume of clinical trials for potential therapies for COVID-19 investigation. Searching for synthetic drugs as well as natural products like plant metabolites which could be beneficial for this purpose will widen our knowledge. Pathways study of secondary metabolite synthesis, plant physiology and phytochemistry are important for drug development. This report includes various synthetic and natural drugs which might show potential activity against Coronavirus and is focused on the mechanism of infection by COVID19 and different inhibition sites available to check viral entry inside the host cell. Inhibiting the sites for jamming viral replication inside the host cell after the infection is another way of fighting infection spread in body. Exploring different sites of inhibition will increase the possibility of obtaining drug for Coronavirus. Natural products proved more useful than synthetic drugs because of its effectiveness and less side effects. Therefore, it is necessary to search for newly available data along with the old analyzed information and incorporating them together to obtain fruitful result.

Keywords:

COVID-19

Synthetic drugs

SARS-CoV-2

Coronavirus

ACE2 receptor

Main protease