Combined drug repurposing and virtual screening strategies with molecular dynamics simulation identified potent inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CLpro)

The current coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) pandemic and phenomenal spread to every nook and cranny of the world has raised major apprehensions about the modern public health care system. So far as a result of this epidemic, 4,434,653 confirmed cases and 302,169 deaths are reported. The growing infection rate and death toll demand the use of all possible approaches to design novel drugs and vaccines to curb this disease. In this study, we combined drugs repurposing and virtual drug screening strategies to target 3CLpro, which has an essential role in viral maturation and replication. A total of 31 FDA approved anti-HIV drugs, and Traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) database were screened to find potential inhibitors. As a result, Saquinavir, and five drugs (TCM5280805, TCM5280445, TCM5280343, TCM5280863, and TCM5458190) from the TCM database were found as promising hits. Furthermore, results from molecular dynamics simulation and total binding free energy revealed that Saquinavir and TCM5280805 target the catalytic dyad (His41 and Cys145) and possess stable dynamics behavior. Thus, we suggest that these compounds should be tested experimentally against the SARS-COV-2 as Saquinavir has been reported to inhibit HIV protease experimentally. Considering the intensity of coronavirus dissemination, the present research is in line with the idea of discovering the latest inhibitors against the coronavirus essential pathways to accelerate the drug development cycle. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Automated summary

The current coronavirus pandemic has raised concerns about the modern public health care system, with a total of 4,434,653 confirmed cases and 302,169 deaths reported. A study combining drug repurposing and virtual drug screening strategies identified potential inhibitors targeting 3CLpro, including Saquinavir and five drugs from the Traditional Chinese Medicine database. Molecular dynamics simulation and total binding free energy results showed promising hits that should be tested experimentally against SARS-COV-2.