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Phytochemical Moieties From Indian Traditional Medicine for Targeting Dual Hotspots on SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein: An Integrative in-silico Approach

V. Umashankar, Sanjay Deshpande, Harsha Vasudev Hegde, Ishwar Singh, Debprasad Chattopadhyay

Frontiers in Medicine, 2021

57 citations

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 infection across the world has led to immense turbulence in the treatment modality, thus demanding a swift drug discovery process. Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 binds to ACE2 receptor of human to initiate host invasion. Plethora of studies demonstrate the inhibition of Spike-ACE2 interactions to impair infection. The ancient Indian traditional medicine has been of great interest of Virologists worldwide to decipher potential antivirals. Hence, in this study, phytochemicals (1,952 compounds) from eight potential medicinal plants used in Indian traditional medicine were meticulously collated, based on their usage in respiratory disorders, along with immunomodulatory and anti-viral potential from contemporary literature. Further, these compounds were virtually screened against Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of Spike protein. The potential compounds from each plant were prioritized based on the binding affinity, key hotspot interactions at ACE2 binding region and glycosylation sites. Finally, the potential hits in complex with spike protein were subjected to Molecular Dynamics simulation (450 ns), to infer the stability of complex formation. Among the compounds screened, Tellimagrandin-II (binding energy of −8.2 kcal/mol and binding free energy of −32.08 kcal/mol) fromSyzygium aromaticumL. and O-Demethyl-demethoxy-curcumin (binding energy of −8.0 kcal/mol and binding free energy of −12.48 kcal/mol) fromCurcuma longaL. were found to be highly potential due to their higher…

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