Design and identification of novel annomontine analogues against SARS-CoV-2: An in-silico approach

COVID-19 has currently emerged as the major global pandemic affecting the lives of people across the globe. It broke out from Wuhan Province of China, first reported to WHO on 31^st December 2019 as "Pneumonia of unknown cause". Over time more people were infected with this virus, and the only tactic to ensure safety was to take precautionary measures due to the lack of any effective treatment or vaccines. As a result of unavailability of desired efficacy for previously repurposed drugs, exploring novel scaffolds against the virus has become the need of the hour.

In the present study, 23 new annomontine analogues were designed representing β-Carboline based scaffolds. A hypothesis on its role as an effective ligand was laid for target-specific binding in SARS-CoV-2. These molecules were used for molecular docking analysis against the multiple possible drug targets using the Maestro Interface. To ensure the drug safety of these molecules ADME/Tox analysis was also performed.

The molecular docking analysis of the 23 novel molecules indicated the efficiency of these derivates against COVID-19. The efficiency of molecules was computed by the summation of the docking score against each target defined as Lig_{E Score} and compared against Hydroxycholoquine as a standard. Based on the docking score, the majority of the annomontine derivatives were found to have increased binding affinity with targets as compared to hydroxycholoquine.

Due to the lack of efficiency, effectiveness, and failure of already repurposed drugs against the COVID-19, the exploration of the novel scaffold that can act as effective treatment is much needed. The current study hence emphasizes the potential of Annomontine based - β- Carboline derivatives as a potential drug candidate against COVID-19.