Cobicistat for COVID-19

SARS-CoV-2 infection induces non-physiological syncytia when its spike fusogenic protein on the surface of the host cells interacts with the ACE2 receptor on adjacent cells. Spike-induced syncytia are beneficial for virus replication, transmission, and immune evasion, and contribute to the progression of COVID-19. In this review, we highlight the properties of viral fusion proteins, mainly the SARS-CoV-2 spike, and the involvement of the host factors in the fusion process. We also highlight the possible use of anti-fusogenic factors as an antiviral for the development of therapeutics against newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and how the fusogenic property of the spike could be exploited for biomedical applications.

AbstractHuman organoids recapitulate the cell type diversity and function of their primary organs holding tremendous potentials for basic and translational research. Advances in single‐cell RNA sequencing (scRNA‐seq) technology and genome‐wide association study (GWAS) have accelerated the biological and therapeutic interpretation of trait‐relevant cell types or states. Here, we constructed a computational framework to integrate atlas‐level organoid scRNA‐seq data, GWAS summary statistics, expression quantitative trait loci, and gene–drug interaction data for distinguishing critical cell populations and drug targets relevant to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) severity. We found that 39 cell types across eight kinds of organoids were significantly associated with COVID‐19 outcomes. Notably, subset of lung mesenchymal stem cells increased proximity with fibroblasts predisposed to repair COVID‐19‐damaged lung tissue. Brain endothelial cell subset exhibited significant associations with severe COVID‐19, and this cell subset showed a notable increase in cell‐to‐cell interactions with other brain cell types, including microglia. We repurposed 33 druggable genes, including IFNAR2, TYK2, and VIPR2, and their interacting drugs for COVID‐19 in a cell‐type‐specific manner. Overall, our results showcase that host genetic determinants have cellular‐specific contribution to COVID‐19 severity, and identification of cell type‐specific drug targets may facilitate to develop effective therapeutics for treating severe COVID‐19 and its complications.

The current pandemic has highlighted the need for methodologies that can quickly and reliably prioritize clinically approved compounds for their potential effectiveness for SARS-CoV-2 infections. In the past decade, network medicine has developed and validated multiple predictive algorithms for drug repurposing, exploiting the sub-cellular network-based relationship between a drug's targets and disease genes. Here, we deployed algorithms relying on artificial intelligence, network diffusion, and network proximity, tasking each of them to rank 6,340 drugs for their expected efficacy against SARS-CoV-2. To test the predictions, we used as ground truth 918 drugs that had been experimentally screened in VeroE6 cells, and the list of drugs under clinical trial, that capture the medical community's assessment of drugs with potential COVID-19 efficacy. We find that while most algorithms offer predictive power for these ground truth data, no single method offers consistently reliable outcomes across all datasets and metrics. This prompted us to develop a multimodal approach that fuses the predictions of all algorithms, showing that a consensus among the different predictive methods consistently exceeds the performance of the best individual pipelines. We find that 76 of the 77 drugs that successfully reduced viral infection do not bind the proteins targeted by SARS-CoV-2, indicating that these drugs rely on network-based actions that cannot be identified using docking-based strategies. These advances offer a methodological pathway to identify repurposable drugs for future pathogens and neglected diseases underserved by the costs and extended timeline of de novo drug development.

COVID-19 pandemic has spurred intense research efforts to identify effective treatments for SARS-CoV-2. In silico studies have emerged as a powerful tool in the drug discovery process, particularly in the search for drug candidates that interact with various SARS-CoV-2 receptors. These studies involve the use of computer simulations and computational algorithms to predict the potential interaction of drug candidates with target receptors. The primary receptors targeted by drug candidates include the RNA polymerase, main protease, spike protein, ACE2 receptor, TMPRSS2, and AP2-associated protein kinase 1. In silico studies have identified several promising drug candidates, including Remdesivir, Favipiravir, Ribavirin, Ivermectin, Lopinavir/Ritonavir, and Camostat mesylate, among others. The use of in silico studies offers several advantages, including the ability to screen a large number of drug candidates in a relatively short amount of time, thereby reducing the time and cost involved in traditional drug discovery methods. Additionally, in silico studies allow for the prediction of the binding affinity of drug candidates to target receptors, providing insight into their potential efficacy. However, it is crucial to consider both the advantages and limitations of these studies and to complement them with experimental validation to ensure the efficacy and safety of identified drug candidates.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a severe worldwide pandemic. Due to the emergence of various SARS-CoV-2 variants and the presence of only one Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved anti-COVID-19 drug (remdesivir), the disease remains a mindboggling global public health problem. Developing anti-COVID-19 drug candidates that are effective against SARS-CoV-2 and its various variants is a pressing need that should be satisfied. This systematic review assesses the existing literature that used in silico models during the discovery procedure of anti-COVID-19 drugs. Cochrane Library, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and PubMed were used to conduct a literature search to find the relevant articles utilizing the search terms “In silico model,” “COVID-19,” “Anti-COVID-19 drug,” “Drug discovery,” “Computational drug designing,” and “Computer-aided drug design.” Studies published in English between 2019 and December 2022 were included in the systematic review. From the 1120 articles retrieved from the databases and reference lists, only 33 were included in the review after the removal of duplicates, screening, and eligibility assessment. Most of the articles are studies that use SARS-CoV-2 proteins as drug targets. Both ligand-based and structure-based methods were utilized to obtain lead anti-COVID-19 drug candidates. Sixteen articles also assessed absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, toxicity (ADMET), and drug-likeness properties. Confirmation of the inhibitory ability of the candidate leads by in vivo or in vitro assays was reported in only five articles. Virtual screening, molecular docking (MD), and molecular dynamics simulation (MDS) emerged as the most commonly utilized in silico models for anti-COVID-19 drug discovery.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in the second half of 2022, there are about 606 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and almost 6,500,000 deaths around the world. A pandemic was declared by the WHO in March 2020 when the new coronavirus spread around the world. The short time between the first cases in Wuhan and the declaration of a pandemic initiated the search for ways to stop the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or to attempt to cure the disease COVID-19. More than ever, research groups are developing vaccines, drugs, and immunobiological compounds, and they are even trying to repurpose drugs in an increasing number of clinical trials. There are great expectations regarding the vaccine’s effectiveness for the prevention of COVID-19. However, producing sufficient doses of vaccines for the entire population and SARS-CoV-2 variants are challenges for pharmaceutical industries. On the contrary, efforts have been made to create different vaccines with different approaches so that they can be used by the entire population. Here, we summarize about 8162 clinical trials, showing a greater number of drug clinical trials in Europe and the United States and less clinical trials in low-income countries. Promising results about the use of new drugs and drug repositioning, monoclonal antibodies, convalescent plasma, and mesenchymal stem cells to control viral infection/replication or the hyper-inflammatory response to the new coronavirus bring hope to treat the disease.

Abstract Due to the lack of a method to efficiently represent the multimodal information of a protein, including its structure and sequence information, predicting compound-protein binding affinity (CPA) still suffers from low accuracy when applying machine-learning methods. To overcome this limitation, in a novel end-to-end architecture (named FeatNN), we develop a coevolutionary strategy to jointly represent the structure and sequence features of proteins and ultimately optimize the mathematical models for predicting CPA. Furthermore, from the perspective of data-driven approach, we proposed a rational method that can utilize both high- and low-quality databases to optimize the accuracy and generalization ability of FeatNN in CPA prediction tasks. Notably, we visually interpret the feature interaction process between sequence and structure in the rationally designed architecture. As a result, FeatNN considerably outperforms the state-of-the-art (SOTA) baseline in virtual drug evaluation tasks, indicating the feasibility of this approach for practical use. FeatNN provides an outstanding method for higher CPA prediction accuracy and better generalization ability by efficiently representing multimodal information of proteins via a coevolutionary strategy.