Understanding the Role of Natural Medicinal Compounds Such as Curcumin and Allicin against SARS-CoV-2 Proteins as Potential Treatment against COVID-19: An In silico Approach

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused greater deaths worldwide and is continuing to do so. India is no exception to this and the number of positive cases in India at increasing at an alarming rate. With no vaccine or medicine to either prevent or cure it, the medical fraternity and people worldwide are relying on basic precautionary measures. There is an utmost need of a drug to cure the pandemic. Various studies have been reported for the genomic and proteomic structure of the virus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19. There are many important proteins in the viral genome which can be targeted for drug design and discovery. The current paper focuses on Main protease and RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) proteins for the drug design against COVID-19. Two important molecules such as Curcumin and Allicin having medicinal properties were studied for their antiviral activity against the SARS-CoV-2 proteins. Hexahydrocurcumin and Hexahydrourcuminol amongst the Curcumin derivatives were found to show good binding affinity against the Main protease; Dihydrocurcumin glucuronide and Curcumin sulphate showed good binding against RdRp. Amongst the Allicin derivatives, Allicin and Ajoene showed good binding affinity for both Main protease as well as RdRp protein. Thus these molecules can be further studied for their in vitro and in vivo activity testing against COVID-19.