Mahmoud S Ahmed, Ayman B Farag, Ian N Boys, Ping Wang, Ivan Menendez-Montes, Ngoc Uyen Nhi Nguyen, Jennifer L Eitson, Maikke B Ohlson, Wenchun Fan, Matthew B McDougal, Katrina Mar, Suwannee Thet, Francisco Ortiz, Soo Young Kim, Ashley Solmonson, Noelle S Williams, Andrew Lemoff, Ralph J DeBerardinis, John W Schoggins, Hesham A Sadek
The continuing heavy toll of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates development of therapeutic options. We adopted structure-based drug repurposing to screen FDA-approved drugs for inhibitory effects against main protease enzyme (Mpro) substrate-binding pocket of SARS-CoV-2 for non-covalent and covalent binding. Top candidates were screened against infectious SARS-CoV-2 in a cell-based viral replication assay. Promising candidates included atovaquone, mebendazole, ouabain, dronedarone, and entacapone, although atovaquone and mebendazole were the only two candidates with IC50s that fall within their therapeutic plasma concentration...
June 2023: Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy