ABSTRACT
Introduction: Coronaviruses are significant pathogens of both human and animals and are globally distributed. Out of seven CoVs strains, the most lethal coronavirus strains being portrayed is SARS-CoV-2. It can cause bronchial asthma, and severe pneumonia and acute respiratory disease. Due to its contagion in infants, adults, and immunocompromised patients which further results in making this a deadly disease, thus there is an urgent need to develop effective and safe therapeutics against it. Materials and Methods: Meta-analysis of publicly available gene expression datasets belonging to SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and HCoV-229E were carried out to identify the potential differentially expressed genes exclusively associated with SARS-CoV-2 and then a network model was developed to decipher significant drug targets, associated pathways and drug candidates which can be repurposed for this infection. Results: The COVID-19 infection mainly targets immune responses and regulatory processes. A novel role of Relaxin signaling pathway was identified in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, nutraceutical and anthelmintic agents were found to be good prospective candidates for repurposing against COVID-19. Conclusions: This theoretical study resulted in the identification of approved drug targets that may have the potential to be repurposed for COVID 19 treatment. © 2021 The Author(s).
ABSTRACT
The new Coronavirus, officially designated as SARS-CoV-2 has caused a pandemic with a global spread to more than 216 countries, areas, or territories 17,106,007 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 668,910 deaths, reported to WHO as of 4:39 pm CEST, 31 July 2020. This virus has been found to have striking similarity with the SARS CoV, which caused an epidemic earlier. Symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, myalgia, dyspnoea, and rarely vomit-ing and diarrhoea. Diagnostic with the help of serological and molecular meth-ods are currently possible, along with CT scans and Chest X Rays for the early detection. Bioinformatics tools are now helping us in mapping the infection dynamics with increased accuracy and are helping us establish a chain of pro-gression of the virus. With research rapidly expanding, new facts have come into the focus and WHO has started a SOLIDARITY program, which helps in randomised drug trials with better validity aided by measures taken by WHO and use of technology.Nevertheless, novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is one of the deadliest viruses’ humanity has encountered, causing not just biological, but also impacting the world economy. This review has all the information about COVID-19 such as its virology, epidemiology, clinical aspects, diagno-sis, possible treatment, and prevention. This study also emphasised on the future direction that could be computational drug screening & vaccine design-ing using Immunoinformatics approach to save time and cost to come out with potential treatments. Drug screening from cell lines and plasma therapy may prove highly effective to treat COVID-19 patients.