Potential Drug Leads for SARS-CoV2 from Phytochemicals of Aerva lanata:
An in silico approach
Abstract
COVID-19 outbreak is the recently reported worldwide pandemic threat. As
part of our interventions with molecular simulation approaches, we
report the inhibitory effect of thirty compounds reported from the
sacred plant Aerva lanata and compare their activity with the one of the
present medication, hydroxy chloroquine, on the main protease (PDB:6YB7)
of SARS-CoV-2. Our studies pointed out the effectiveness of the plant
with twenty seven compounds having potential activity against the main
protease compared to the reference HCQ. The robustness of some of the
phytochemicals such as ervoside, which is only present in Aerva lanata
computed to have very high anticoronavirus activity. The results are
indicative of potential natural antivirus source, which subsidizes in
thwarting the invasion of coronavirus into the human body. Many
phytochemicals which are computed to be effective towards SARS-CoV-2 in
this study are used as drugs for various other diseases. Perhaps these
compounds could be attractive for the management of COVID-19, but
clinical trials must be performed in order to validate this observation.