Molecular targets and system biology approaches for drug repurposing against SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

Background: COVID-19, a pandemic declared by WHO, has infected about 39.5 million and killed about 1.1 million people throughout the world. There is the urgent need of more studies to identify the novel drug targets and the drug candidates against it to handle the situation.

Main body: To virtually screen various drugs against SARS-CoV-2, the scientists need the detail information about the various drug targets identified till date. The present review provides the information about almost all the drug targets, including structural and non-structural proteins of virus as well as host cell surface receptors, that can be used for virtual screening of drugs. Moreover, this review also focuses on the different network analysis tools that have been used for the identification of new drug targets and candidate repurposable drugs against SARS-CoV-2.

Conclusion: This review provides important insights of various drug targets and the network analysis tools to young bioinformaticians and will help in creating pace to the drug repurposing strategy for COVID-19 disease.

Keywords: COVID-19; Drug repurposing; Drug targets; Interaction network; Network biology.

Fig. 1

Genome organization of SARS-CoV-2

Fig. 2

Features of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein along with amino acid sequences of receptor binding domain and the cleavage site

Fig. 3

Host cell surface receptors helpful in entry of SARS-CoV-2 in host cell

Fig. 4

Diagrammatic representation of system biology-based methods for identification of therapeutic targets and repurposable drugs against SARS-Co-2