ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a newly emerged infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The rapid global emergence of SARS-CoV-2 highlights the importance and urgency for potential drugs to control the pandemic. The functional importance of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) in the viral life cycle, combined with structural conservation and absence of closely related homologs in humans, makes it an attractive target for designing antiviral drugs. Nucleos(t)ide analogs (NAs) are still the most promising broad-spectrum class of viral RdRp inhibitors. In this study, using our previously developed cell-based SARS-CoV-2 RdRp report system, we screened 134 compounds in the Selleckchemicals NAs library. Four candidate compounds, Fludarabine Phosphate, Fludarabine, 6-Thio-20-Deoxyguanosine (6-Thio-dG), and 5-Iodotubercidin, exhibit remarkable potency in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 RdRp. Among these four compounds, 5-Iodotubercidin exhibited the strongest inhibition upon SARS-CoV-2 RdRp, and was resistant to viral exoribonuclease activity, thus presenting the best antiviral activity against coronavirus from a different genus. Further study showed that the RdRp inhibitory activity of 5-Iodotubercidin is closely related to its capacity to inhibit adenosine kinase (ADK).
Subject(s)
Antiviral Agents/pharmacology , COVID-19 Drug Treatment , Nucleic Acid Synthesis Inhibitors/pharmacology , SARS-CoV-2/drug effects , Tubercidin/analogs & derivatives , Cell Line , Deoxyguanosine/analogs & derivatives , Deoxyguanosine/pharmacology , Drug Evaluation, Preclinical/methods , HEK293 Cells , Humans , Microbial Sensitivity Tests , RNA, Viral/biosynthesis , RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase/antagonists & inhibitors , SARS-CoV-2/genetics , Thionucleosides/pharmacology , Tubercidin/pharmacology , Vidarabine/analogs & derivatives , Vidarabine/pharmacology , Vidarabine Phosphate/analogs & derivatives , Vidarabine Phosphate/pharmacologySubject(s)
Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2/biosynthesis , Antiviral Agents/pharmacology , COVID-19 Drug Treatment , Interferon Type I/pharmacology , Receptors, Virus/biosynthesis , STAT1 Transcription Factor/antagonists & inhibitors , Vidarabine/analogs & derivatives , A549 Cells , Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2/genetics , Binding Sites , COVID-19/enzymology , COVID-19/virology , Enzyme Induction , HEK293 Cells , HeLa Cells , Humans , Phosphorylation , Promoter Regions, Genetic , Receptors, Virus/genetics , STAT1 Transcription Factor/metabolism , Vidarabine/pharmacologyABSTRACT
SARS-CoV-2 has caused COVID-19 outbreak with nearly 2 M infected people and over 100K death worldwide, until middle of April 2020. There is no confirmed drug for the treatment of COVID-19 yet. As the disease spread fast and threaten human life, repositioning of FDA approved drugs may provide fast options for treatment. In this aspect, structure-based drug design could be applied as a powerful approach in distinguishing the viral drug target regions from the host. Evaluation of variations in SARS-CoV-2 genome may ease finding specific drug targets in the viral genome. In this study, 3458 SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences isolated from all around the world were analyzed. Incidence of C17747T and A17858G mutations were observed to be much higher than others and they were on Nsp13, a vital enzyme of SARS-CoV-2. Effect of these mutations was evaluated on protein-drug interactions using in silico methods. The most potent drugs were found to interact with the key and neighbor residues of the active site responsible from ATP hydrolysis. As result, cangrelor, fludarabine, folic acid and polydatin were determined to be the most potent drugs which have potency to inhibit both the wild type and mutant SARS-CoV-2 helicase. Clinical data supporting these findings would be important towards overcoming COVID-19.