Antiviral strategy for COVID-19
Antiviral strategy
Knowing the way how viruses are built is first and the best approach to fighting them. How viruses approach and enter the host cell is the second most important mechanism. Newest techniques in science, especially Molecular biology and Microscopy allow us to follow their life cycle.
When it comes to the latest corona type virus which started its invasion in China, Wuhan, classification was not much helpful. Understanding the built of a virus envelope or capsid was useful in further learning how can a virus be attached to the cell and finally how it can enter. From what is known, a genetic sequence is changing rapidly, with every new host and it makes all the efforts of pharmaceutical companies to find a cure, even more difficult.
Belonging to the group of highly invasive viruses responsible for the destruction of the immune response in the host organism, Covid virus is classified near HIV according to its way of acting.
This was the key point for doctors to try and use drugs effective for HIV patients but trials are not yet finished and can not show completely proved results. For what is learned, these drugs can be helpful.
Why antiviral drugs used for HIV patients also help with covid virus-infected patients, if this is only considered to be “seasonal unfortunate” circumstance and can be prevented with high measures and isolation?
With the best intentions to avoid any unnecessary political and economical perspectives, researches will give a try to antiviral drugs because they are capable of stoping or at least, slowing down viral replication. When a virus becomes incapable of replicating, because its enzymes are blocked, the immune response of a host will finally have a chance to fight. In this battle, the host organism will raise the temperature to expel the virus from its cells. Drugs are highly useful because of their effect on viral enzymes, blocking them or even degrading while raising the immunity of a host.
Below is some official information form a clinical trial made on 41 Wuhan patients who were treated with HIV specific drugs, atazanavir.
“The result showed that atazanavir, an antiretroviral medication used to treat and prevent the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is the most promising chemical compound. The authors noted that the model showed that atazanavir has an inhibitory potency with Kd of 94.94 nM against the 2019-nCoV 3C-like proteinase, followed by efavirenz (199.17 nM), ritonavir (204.05 nM), and dolutegravir (336.91 nM). Atazanavir was predicted to have a potential binding affinity to multiple components of the virus, binding to RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (Kd 21.83 nM), helicase (Kd 25.92 nM), 3′-to-5′ exonuclease (Kd 82.36 nM), 2′-O-ribose methyltransferase (Kd of 390 nM), and endoRNAse (Kd 50.32 nM), suggesting that “all subunits of the 2019-nCoV replication complex may be inhibited simultaneously by atazanavir.” (https://www.genengnews.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-predicts-coronavirus-vulnerable-to-hivs-atazanavir)
Time is very consuming when it comes to situations like this, where human and animal lives are at high risk and there are simply no precise solutions. To find it, researchers employ artificial intelligence and let it operate with a set of about eight thousand molecules, which could be effective in this antiviral fight. It is a learning-based molecule optimization AI model named “molecule equalizer (MoIEQ). The cooperation of teams around the world will certainly bring the best results and we only hope that it will be very very soon.
