Halma MTJ, Wever MJA, Abeln S, Roche D, Wuite GJL. Therapeutic potential of compounds targeting SARS-CoV-2 helicase.
Front Chem 2022;
10:1062352. [PMID:
36561139 PMCID:
PMC9763700 DOI:
10.3389/fchem.2022.1062352]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2022] [Accepted: 11/25/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The economical and societal impact of COVID-19 has made the development of vaccines and drugs to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection a priority. While the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein has been widely explored as a drug target, the SARS-CoV-2 helicase (nsp13) does not have any approved medication. The helicase shares 99.8% similarity with its SARS-CoV-1 homolog and was shown to be essential for viral replication. This review summarizes and builds on existing research on inhibitors of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 helicases. Our analysis on the toxicity and specificity of these compounds, set the road going forward for the repurposing of existing drugs and the development of new SARS-CoV-2 helicase inhibitors.
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