Microbial Natural Products with Antiviral Activities, Including Anti-SARS-CoV-2: A Review

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which caused the COVID-19 infection, was discovered two and a half years ago. It caused a global pandemic, resulting in millions of deaths and substantial damage to the worldwide economy. Currently, only a few vaccines and antiviral drugs are available to combat SARS-CoV-2. However, there has been an increase in virus-related research, including exploring new drugs and their repurposing. Since discovering penicillin, natural products, particularly those derived from microbes, have been viewed as an abundant source of lead compounds for drug discovery. These compounds treat bacterial, fungal, parasitic, and viral infections. This review incorporates evidence from the available research publications on isolated and identified natural products derived from microbes with anti-hepatitis, anti-herpes simplex, anti-HIV, anti-influenza, anti-respiratory syncytial virus, and anti-SARS-CoV-2 properties. About 131 compounds with in vitro antiviral activity and 1 compound with both in vitro and in vivo activity have been isolated from microorganisms, and the mechanism of action for some of these compounds has been described. Recent reports have shown that natural products produced by the microbes, such as aurasperone A, neochinulin A and B, and aspulvinone D, M, and R, have potent in vitro anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity, targeting the main protease (Mpro). In the near and distant future, these molecules could be used to develop antiviral drugs for treating infections and preventing the spread of disease.

Unveiling the Microbial Realm with VEBA 2.0: A modular bioinformatics suite for end-to-end genome-resolved prokaryotic, (micro)eukaryotic, and viral multi-omics from either short- or long-read sequencing

“…The loss of biodiversity is expected to alter ecosystem functionality and the ability to provide society with the requisite resources to prosper (208). Further, with a decrease in biodiversity we also forfeit the potential for discovering natural products with biomedical relevance such as antimicrobial (209)(210)(211), chemotherapy (212), and antiviral agents (213). With biodiversity loss growing increasingly dire (214), curbing anthropogenic biodiversity loss is paramount and requires policies to address the multifaceted crisis (215).…”

Kaempferol: A Review of Current Evidence of Its Antiviral Potential

“…Moreover, in an effort to enhance tissue availability, selectivity and effectiveness, kaempferol and associated compounds could be combined with nanoparticles, which have promising medical applications [265][266][267]. Another interesting future research avenue would be to combine kaempferol with other phytochemicals with known antiviral properties such as catechins [268][269][270], quercetin [271][272][273], plant alkaloids [55,[274][275][276], and other natural compounds [277][278][279].…”

Developments in Exploring Fungal Secondary Metabolites as Antiviral Compounds and Advances in HIV-1 Inhibitor Screening Assays

“…Nevertheless, the promising discoveries made thus far reveal the potential for further development of these bioactive compounds as lead compounds for HIV treatment. However, there are several limitations to the small molecular screens for anti-HIV compounds [ 48 , 121 ]. These obstacles include the need for highly specialized containment laboratories with highly trained personnel and a lack of innovative antiviral screening tools [ 48 ].…”