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. 2021 May;203(4):1691-1696.
doi: 10.1007/s00203-020-02163-9. Epub 2021 Jan 18.

Addressing the potential role of curcumin in the prevention of COVID-19 by targeting the Nsp9 replicase protein through molecular docking

Mohit Kumar  1   2 , Kushneet Kaur Sodhi  1 , Dileep Kumar Singh  3
Affiliations

Addressing the potential role of curcumin in the prevention of COVID-19 by targeting the Nsp9 replicase protein through molecular docking

Mohit Kumar et al. Arch Microbiol. 2021 May.

Abstract

The pandemics have always been a destructive carrier to living organisms. Humans are the ultimate victims, as now we are facing the SARS CoV-2 virus caused COVID-19 since its emergence in Dec 2019, at Wuhan (China). Due to the new coronavirus' unexplored nature, we shed light on curcumin for its potential role against the disease. The Nsp9 replicase protein, which plays an essential role in virus replication, was extracted online, followed by 3D PDB model prediction with its validation. The in silico molecular docking of curcumin with the replicase enzyme gave insights into the preventive measures against the virus as curcumin showed multiple interactions with Nsp9 replicase. The current study showed the use of curcumin against the coronavirus and its possible role in developing medicine against it.

Keywords: Coronavirus; Curcumin; In silico; Molecular docking; Nsp9 replicase.

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Conflict of interest statement

None of the authors have any kind of conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The common infection pathway of Coronavirus, causes COVID-19 in the human system, with the entry roots; oral, nasal, and mucus membranes from where they reach to the body system to replicate and amplify themselves. Their amplification caused the immune cells to secrete the cytokines (Velazquez et al. 2019), leads to the molecular signaling pathways, cause abnormal breath, hypoxia, etc. Curcumin has the potential to inhibit the virus operated pathways and can lower down the pathological consequences after the virus infection (Qin et al. 2014)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
a The Ramachandran plot for assessment of the overall quality of the protein model, indicating up to 90% of the total amino acids in the most favored region of Ramachandran plot (a, b and l). b The Z-score of the protein predicted model was -4.2 indicating the good quality for the study, based on the X-ray and NMR calculations through the ProSA web server. Both quality check program, allowed the predicted model to be used in the current study. c The QMEAN value along with other physical parameters by SWISS MODEL
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The ligand-binding site of Nsp9 protein holding the curcumin in its pocket
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Figure showing the in-silico interaction of different active amino acids of Nsp9 replicase protein with the curcumin (1–11). All the active amino acids showed interaction with curcumin with either actual or possibilities of bond formation
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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