The coronavirus disease COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) has presented unprecedented challenges to the healthcare systems in the world. There are no definite effective therapeutic agents or vaccines against the virus currently. However clinical management of the infection includes prevention, control measures, supportive care and repurposed drug therapy based on pathophysiology of the virus and manifestation of the disease condition thereby using antiviral agents such as remdesivir, lopinavir and favipiravir. Herbal preparations are being promoted for the management of Covid-19. Some selected Nigerian medicinal plants are hereby investigated by In-silico studies of the plant constituents. When compared with the listed therapeutic agents, the phytochemical constituents of the selected plants have better binding affinity to several Covid-19 viral target proteins. Also they were found to be safe for human use with LD50 of >2000 mg/Kg for the plant extracts. Some of the plants also contained phytochemicals that can be employed for the symptoms of covid-19.
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has presented unprecedented challenges to healthcare systems worldwide. There are no proven effective therapeutic agents or vaccines. Some antiviral agents and micronutrients have been repurposed for the management. There are claims of herbal preparations with therapeutic effects. Vangag herbal formulation for the management of COVID-19 is a combination of six plants. Molecular docking and virtual screening were used for the study. Ligands and protein target for molecular docking were prepared in Autodock Tools using PyRx 0.8 package. 3D structures of 24 phytochemicals in Vangag were downloaded from PubChem and optimized in Discovery Studio 4.5 visualizer. Nine agents currently used for management of COVID-19 were also downloaded and included in the ligand library to serve as control. Results of the binding affinities of phytochemicals in constituentplants of Vangag to SARS-CoV-2 molecular target (7BV2.pdb) were ranked from 1 to 21. Kolaviron (binding affinity -8.1 Kcal/mol) ranked 1, Ritonavir 5, Remdesivir 6, Quinine 7, Hydroxychloroquine 9, Chloroquine 18 and the least Allicin 21 (binding affinity -3.7 Kcal/mol). Phytochemicals in Vangag have good binding affinity to COVID-19 viral target proteins. Vangag also contains high concentration of zinc and other micronutrients, making it a promising formula for management of COVID-19. Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Molecular docking; Herbal formulation
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.