Drug repurposing against SARS-CoV-2 using computational approaches

Abstract

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has generated a critical need for treatments to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with this disease. However, traditional drug development takes many years, which is not practical solution given the current pandemic. Therefore, a viable option is to repurpose existing drugs. The structural data of several proteins vital for the virus became available shortly after the start of the pandemic. In this review, we discuss the importance of these targets and their available potential inhibitors predicted by the computational approaches. Among the hits identified by computational approaches, 35 candidates were suggested for further evaluation, among which ten drugs are in clinical trials (Phase III and IV) for treating Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19).

Keywords: COVID-19; Computational approaches; Drug repurposing; Molecular docking; SARS-CoV-2.

Figure 1

Flowchart representing drug repurposing through computational approaches delivering a few clinically important leads as therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 infection.