A PRELIMINARY IN-SILICO ANALYSIS OF OCIMUM SANCTUM FLAVONOIDS, ORIENTIN AND VICENIN-1, AS POTENTIAL DRUGS AGAINST SARS-COV-2 INFECTION

摘要

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is the causative agent of the Covid-19 pandemic. The major proteins of this virus, like covid main protease RNA dependent RNA polymerase, are being extensively studied with the hopes of finding an effective molecule that would bind to these proteins and lead to their inhibition. The inhibition of these critical viral proteins would hamper SARS-CoV-2 infection. With most of the currently available drugs falling short of providing an absolute cure and the reported side-effects of the current medications, a lot of phytochemicals are being investigated for their efficacy against the viral proteins. In our preliminary in-silico analysis, we found that the Ocimum Sanctum (Holy Basil/Tulsi) flavonoids, orientin, and vicenin-1, showed energetically favoured docking with the functionally critical amino acid residues of covid main protease, RNA dependent RNA polymerase, Spike protein, nucleocapsid, and 3a proteins of SARS-CoV-2 virus. These results hold promise for orientin and vicenin-1 to be further investigated as potential therapeutic drugs against SARS-CoV-2 infections.