On the steroids extracted from soft corals against the NS3/4A protease of hepatitis C virus

The Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes a variety of liver diseases, making it a global health issue that affects millions of people in the world. The NS3/4A protease has been considered a common target for anti-HCV treatments using direct-acting antiviral agents and their derivatives. Of the natural products that have been proposed for novel therapeutic product alternatives, the soft coral compounds are found to contain steroids with various bioactive properties for effective HCV treatments. They are screened to search for HCV inhibitors using computational approaches to screen for potential HCV inhibitors from the extracts of soft corals. Among 188 steroids considered, the five top compounds are selected for evaluation of binding affinities and stabilities using molecular docking and dynamics simulations, as well as with absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity to assess the drug's performance.