Abstract
The economical and societal impact of COVID-19 has made the development of vaccines and drugs to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection a priority. While the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein has been widely explored as a drug target, the SARS-CoV-2 helicase (nsp13) does not have any approved medication. The helicase shares 99.8% similarity with its SARS-CoV-1 homolog and was shown to be essential for viral replication. This review summarizes and builds on existing research on inhibitors of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 helicases. Our analysis on the toxicity and specificity of these compounds, set the road going forward for the repurposing of existing drugs and the development of new SARS-CoV-2 helicase inhibitors.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-12 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Frontiers in Chemistry |
Volume | 10 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 6 Dec 2022 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- COVID-19
- drug repurposing
- helicase
- natural products
- nsp13
- SARS-CoV-2
- small-molecule inhibitors