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Background The World Health Organization has recently declared a new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a pandemic and a global health emergency. The pressure to produce drugs and vaccines against the ongoing pandemic has resulted in the use of some drugs such as azithromycin, chloroquine (sulfate and phosphate), hydroxychloroquine, dexamethasone, favipiravir, remdesivir, ribavirin, ivermectin, and lopinavir/ritonavir. However, reports from some of the clinical trials with these drugs have proved detrimental on some COVID-19 infected patients with side effects more of which cardiomyopathy, cardiotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, macular retinopathy, and hepatotoxicity have been recently reported. Realizing the need for potent and harmless therapeutic compounds to combat COVID-19, we attempted in this study to find promising therapeutic compounds against the imminent threat of this virus. In this current study, 16 derivatives of gallic acid were docked against five selected non-structural proteins of SARS-COV-2 known to be a good target for finding small molecule inhibitors against the virus, namely, nsp3, nsp5, nsp12, nsp13, and nsp14. All the protein crystal structures and 3D structures of the small molecules (16 gallic acid derivatives and 3 control drugs) were retrieved from the Protein database (PDB) and PubChem server respectively. The compounds with lower binding energy than the control drugs were selected and subjected to pharmacokinetics screening using AdmetSAR server. Results 4-O-(6-galloylglucoside) gave binding energy values of − 8.4, − 6.8, − 8.9, − 9.1, and − 7.5 kcal/mol against Mpro, nsp3, nsp12, nsp13, and nsp15 respectively. Based on the ADMET profile, 4-O-(6-galloylglucoside) was found to be metabolized by the liver and has a very high plasma protein binding. Conclusion The result of this study revealed that 4-O-(6-galloylglucoside) could be a promising inhibitor against these SAR-Cov-2 proteins. However, there is still a need for further molecular dynamic simulation, in vivo and in vitro studies to support these findings.

Heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) is a protein that works as a chaperone and an antioxidant and is activated by heat shock, environmental stress, and pathophysiological stress. However, HSP27 dysregulation is a characteristic of many human cancers. HSP27 suppresses apoptosis and cytoskeletal reorganization. As a result, it is recognized as a critical therapeutic target for effective cancer therapy. Despite the effectiveness of multiple HSP27 inhibitors in pre-clinical investigations and clinical trials, no HSP27 inhibitor has progressed to the anticancer phase of the development. These difficulties have mostly been attributable to existing anticancer therapies’ inability to target oncogenic HSP27. Highly selective HSP27 inhibitors with higher effective-ness and low toxicity led to the development of combination techniques that include computer-aided assisted therapeutic discovery and design. This study emphasizes the most recent results and roles of HSP27 in cancer and the potential for utilizing an anticancer chemical database to uncover novel compounds to inhibit HSP27.

The ongoing pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV 2) has led to more than 168 million confirmed cases with 3.5 million deaths as at 28th May, 2021 across 218 countries. The virus has a cysteine protease called main protease (Mpro) which is significant to it life cycle, tagged as a suitable target for novel antivirals. In this computer-assisted study, we designed 100 novel molecules through an artificial neural network-driven platform called LigDream ( https://playmolecule.org/LigDream/ ) using 3-O-(6-galloylglucoside) as parent molecule for design. Druglikeness screening of the molecules through five (5) different rules was carried out, followed by a virtual screening of those molecules without a single violation of the druglike rules using AutoDock Vina against Mpro. The in silico pharmacokinetic features were predicted and finally, quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) study was carried out using Molecular Orbital Package 2016 (MOPAC2016) on the overall hit compound with controls to determine the stability and reactivity of the lead molecule. The findings showed that eight (8) novel molecules violated none of the druglikeness rules of which three (3) novel molecules (C33, C35 and C54) showed the utmost binding affinity of −8.3 kcal/mol against Mpro; C33 showed a good in silico pharmacokinetic features with acceptable level of stability and reactively better than our controls based on the quantum chemical descriptors analysis. However, there is an urgent need to carry out more research on these novel molecules for the fight against the disease. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11696-021-01899-y.

Background It is a known fact that arginine is a common substrate for arginase and nitric oxide synthase (NOS). However, an imbalance between both enzymes could lead to a change in airway responses. Reports suggest that increased activities of both enzymes could lead to airway hyper-responsiveness. Thus, the requests for NOS inhibitors that can also inhibit arginase as the elevated activities of both enzymes have detrimental consequence on airways in asthma. Bioactive compounds from Azadirachta indica, Crinum glaucum, and Mangifera indica are documented for anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, anti-histaminic, smooth-muscle relaxants, and anti-allergic potentials. However, the mechanisms of action of these bioactive compounds in conferring the aforementioned protections are not well characterized. The objective of this present study is to assess in silico inhibitory potentials of these bioactive compounds against NOS and arginase via binding at their active sites. The crystal structures of NOS and arginase were retrieved from the protein database, while the bioactive compounds were retrieved from PubChem. Drug-likeness of the selected bioactive compounds was assessed using DruLiTo software. The successful compounds were docked with active sites of enzymes using AutoDock Vina docking software, and the docked complexes were analyzed using LigPlot and protein-ligand profiler web server. Results The findings of the study revealed that the bioactive compounds from A. indica, C. glaucum, and M. indica were able to interact with the active sites of NOS and arginase with the exception of gallic acid (from M. indica) and nimbandiol (from A. indica); these compounds showed differential binding energies (kcal/mol) and a number of them had higher binding energies than l-arginine when docked with NOS. Conclusion Conclusively, the in silico analysis proposes that these compounds could prove to be probable anti-asthmatic drugs.