Structural Understanding of SARS-CoV-2 Drug Targets, Active Site Contour Map Analysis and COVID-19 Therapeutics

The most iconic word of the year 2020 is 'COVID-19', the shortened name for coronavirus disease 2019. The pandemic, caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is responsible for multiple worldwide lockdowns, an economic crisis, and a substantial increase in hospitalizations for viral pneumonia along with respiratory failure and multiorgan dysfunctions. Recently, the first few vaccines were approved by World Health Organization (WHO) and can eventually save millions of lives. Even though, few emergency use drugs like Remdesivir and several other repurposed drugs, still there is no approved drug for COVID-19. The coronaviral encoded proteins involved in host-cell entry, replication, and host-cell invading mechanism are potentially therapeutic targets. This perspective review provides the molecular overview of SARS-CoV-2 life cycle for summarizing potential drug targets, structural insights, active site contour map analyses of those selected SARS-CoV-2 protein targets for drug discovery, immunology, and pathogenesis.