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The Role of Molecular Modeling and Bioinformatics in Treating a Pandemic Disease: The Case of COVID-19



Abdallah S. Abdelsattar1, 2, Zahraa M. El-Awadly3, Mai Abdelgawad4, Fayrouz Mahmoud3, Sahar A. Allam5, Mohamed A. Helal3, 6, *
1 Center for Microbiology and Phage Therapy, Zewail City of Science and Technology, October Gardens, 6th of October City, Giza, 12578, Egypt
2 Center for X-Ray and Determination of Structure of Matter, Zewail City of Science and Technology, October Gardens, 6th of October, Giza, 12578, Egypt
3 Biomedical Sciences Program, University of Science and Technology, Zewail City of Science and Technology, Giza, 12587, Egypt
4 Department of Biotechnology and Life Sciences, Faculty of Postgraduate Studies for Advanced Sciences (PSAS), Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, 62511, Egypt
5 Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University, Tanta, 31512, Egypt
6 Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, 41522, Egypt


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Creative Commons License
© 2021 Abdelsattar et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Biomedical Sciences Program, University of Science and Technology, Zewail City of Science and Technology, Giza, 12587, Egypt; E-mail: mhelal@zewailcity.edu.eg


Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 in a cluster of pneumonia patients. The causative agent was found to be SARS-CoV-2. Here, we are summarizing current treatment strategies and highlighting the role of bioinformatics, molecular modeling, and structural biology during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are different pharmacological treatments, mostly repurposed drugs, employed for the treatment of COVID-19, including antiviral drugs, corticosteroids, biologic drugs, antibiotics, antifungal agents, and anticoagulants. Some immune-based therapies are also under evaluation, including convalescent plasma, IL-1, IL-6 inhibitors, and interferons. Different bioinformatics networks are established to provide information about the structure, transcriptome, and pathogenicity of the virus. The genotyping analysis for SARS-CoV-2 is also useful in identifying different mutations, SNPs, and conservative domains along the viral genome. Cryo-EM and X-ray diffraction had a crucial role in determining the structure of viral proteins such as spike (S) protein, main protease, and RdRp. NMR had a minor role and determining the structure of nucleocapsid (N) protein only. Several docking studies were performed to predict the interaction of certain FDA-approved drugs with known efficacy and toxicity, while others used natural products. Among different study types, in silico drug prediction and repurposing have the lowest risk with less off-target results. Therefore, bioinformatics and in silico studies have an important role during pandemics in providing information about viral structure and function and predicting potential treatments.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, Drug repurposing, Bioinformatics, Docking, Immune-based therapy, X-ray diffraction.