Structure-Based Virtual Screening and Biochemical Validation to Discover a Potential Inhibitor of the SARS-CoV-2 Main...

The recent pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has led the world to a standstill, causing a medical and economic crisis worldwide. This crisis has triggered an urgent need to discover a possible treatment strategy against this novel virus using already-approved drugs. The main protease (Mpro) of this virus plays a critical role in cleaving the translated polypeptides that makes it a potential drug target against COVID-19. Taking advantage of the recently discovered three-dimensional structure of Mpro, we screened approved drugs from the Drug Bank to find a possible inhibitor against Mpro using computational methods and further validating them with biochemical studies. The docking and molecular dynamics study revealed that DB04983 (denufosol) showed the best glide docking score, -11.884 kcal/mol, and MM-PBSA binding free energy, -10.96 kcal/mol. Cobicistat, cangrelor (previous computational studies in our lab), and denufosol (current study) were tested for the in vitro inhibitory effects on Mpro. The IC₅₀ values of these drugs were ∼6.7 μM, 0.9 mM, and 1.3 mM, respectively, while the values of dissociation constants calculated using surface plasmon resonance were ∼2.1 μM, 0.7 mM, and 1.4 mM, respectively. We found that cobicistat is the most efficient inhibitor of Mpro both in silico and in vitro. In conclusion, cobicistat, which is already an FDA-approved drug being used against HIV, may serve as a good inhibitor against the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 that, in turn, can help in combating COVID-19, and these results can also form the basis for the rational structure-based drug design against COVID-19.