Chinese scientists discover the inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2

April 10, 2020 / Bio Valley BIOON /-A new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was identified as the COVID-19 virus, which was the culprit causing the global pandemic of COVID-19 in early 2020. However, there is currently no targeted treatment, and effective treatment options are still very limited.

In order to quickly discover lead compoundsfor clinical use, the Rao Zi and / Yang Haitao research team from the Shanghai University of Science and Technology collaborated with the Jiang Hualiang research team of the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Institute and other units to launch a joint structure-assisted drug design, virtual drug screening and Qualcomm Screening projects to identify new drug leads for the COVID-19 virus protease (Mpro). Related research results were published on Nature on April 9th, entitled "Structure of Mpro from COVID-19 virus and discovery of its inhibitors ".

Mpro is a key SARS-CoV-2 enzyme that plays a key role in mediating viral replication and transcription and is an attractive drug target for the virus.

To this end, the researchers identified a mechanism-based inhibitor, N3, through computer-aided drug design, and subsequently determined the crystal structure of the COVID-19 virus Mpro.

Next, by combining structure-based virtual and high-throughput screening, the researchers analyzed more than 10,000 compounds, including approved drugs, drug candidates in clinical trials, and other pharmacologically active compounds as Mpro inhibitors.

The researchers found that the IC50 value of six compounds that can inhibit Mpro is between 0.67 μM and 21.4 μM. Ebselen also showed good antiviral activity in cell detection.

Overall, the results of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of this screening strategy, which can lead to the rapid discovery of clinically potential drug leads in response to new infectious diseases where no specific drugs or vaccines are available