Drug Development and Medicinal Chemistry Efforts toward SARS-Coronavirus and Covid-19 Therapeutics
- ChemMedChem. 2020 Jun 4;15(11):907-932. doi: 10.1002/cmdc.202000223.
- 1. Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
- 2. Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacolgy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
- 3. Department of Excellence of Pharmacy, University of Naples Federico II, 80131, Naples, Italy.
- 4. Department of Biochemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
- 5. Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 Infection is spreading at an alarming rate and has created an unprecedented health emergency around the globe. There is no effective vaccine or approved drug treatment against COVID-19 and Other pathogenic coronaviruses. The development of Antiviral agents is an urgent priority. Biochemical events critical to the coronavirus replication cycle provided a number of attractive targets for drug development. These include, spike protein for binding to host cell-surface receptors, proteolytic Enzymes that are essential for processing polyproteins into mature viruses, and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase for RNA replication. There has been a lot of ground work for drug discovery and development against these targets. Also, high-throughput screening efforts have led to the identification of diverse lead structures, including natural product-derived molecules. This review highlights past and present drug discovery and medicinal-chemistry approaches against SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and COVID-19 targets. The review hopes to stimulate further research and will be a useful guide to the development of effective therapies against COVID-19 and Other pathogenic coronaviruses.