Washington: Scientists have identified the novel target for drugs that can treat the SARS-COV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, and also helps overcome the future coronavirus pandemic.
Researchers at the University of the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine in the US noted that scientists must prepare the possibility of the next Coronavirus pandemic.
“God forbid us to need this, but we will be ready,” said Karla Satchell, Professor of Microbiology-Immunology at the Feinberg School of Medicine.
The previous team mapped a viral protein structure called NSP16, which was in all Coronavirus.
The latest study, published in the SCIENCE journal signal, provides important information that can help develop drugs against future Koronavirus and SARS-COV-2.
“There is a great need for a new approach to drug discovery to combat Pandemics and SARS-COV-2 / Covid-19 infections from Coronavirus in the future,” Satchell said.
The idea behind the drug in the future is that it works early in infection.
“If someone around you gets Coronavirus, you will run to the drug store to get your medicine and take it for three or four days.
If you are sick, you will not hurt,” Satchell explained.
The researchers mapped three new protein structures in a three-dimensional view and found secret identifiers in machines that helped viruses hiding from the immune system.
They found a special bag of Coronavirus in protein, NSP16, which ties the genomical fragment of the virus owned by metal ions.
Fragments are used by Coronavirus as a template for all virus building blocks.
There is a potential to make the drug to fit this unique pocket that will block this protein function from Coronavirus, the researchers said.
Will not block similar protein functions from human cells that do not have a pocket, they say, add such drugs will only target invadeable proteins.
NSP16 is considered one of the main virus proteins that can be hampered by drugs to stop the virus shortly after someone is exposed.
The goal, the researchers said, was to stop the virus early before the sick people were too sick.
The team works to produce key information about this protein and collaborate with chemists who will use this information to design medicines against proteins.
The researchers noted that while some coronavirus proteins varied greatly, NSP16 was almost the same in most of them.
Unique pocket found by the team is present in all members of different Coronavirus.
This means that drugs designed to fit this pocket must work against all Coronavirus, including the virus that appears in the future, according to researchers.
It also has to work against ordinary flu caused by Coronavirus, they said.
The researchers imagine each drug developed based on the findings of the team from the Coronavirus pocket will be part of the cocktail of treatment taken by patients at the beginning of the course of the disease.
It can include drugs that are similar to remedies, which prevents the virus from producing templates for the building blocks needed to replicate themselves, he added.