ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
Arti Kumari1 , Prashant Kumar2, Manindra Kumar3 and Jainendra Kumar4
1Department of Microbiology, Patna Women’s College (Autonomous) Patna University,
Patna, Bihar – 800001, India.
2Department of Zoology, Ramjaipal College, Chapra, Bihar, India.
3Former Faculty member, Institute of Modern Biology & Applied Sciences, Patna, Bihar, India.
4Former Professor, Department of Botany & Biotechnology, Patliputra University, Patna, Bihar, India.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2021;15(2):709-715 | Article Number: 6933
https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.15.2.22 | © The Author(s). 2021
Received: 16/03/2021 | Accepted: 22/04/2021 | Published: 13/05/2021
Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID–19) has spread rapidly as global pandemic affecting 187 countries/ regions and emerged as worldwide health crisis. Potential antiviral drugs used for the SARS -CoV-2 in clinical treatments have side effects. However, emergency vaccines are in use but despite that increase in the coronavirus cases are alarming. Thus, it is utmost need of safer antiviral agent to treat or inhibit the viral infection. Forskolin has been reported as a possible antiviral-agent. This molecule was docked with ACE2 receptor of human which is the target for the binding of S1 unit of viral S protein of SARS-CoV- 2. In silico docking was carried out on SwissDock, PatchDock and FireDock servers. The docked ACE2 structure was further docked with the RBD of the spike protein. Forskolin is able to H-bond with the hACE2 and ACE2-forskolin fails to interact with the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. Instead, viral RBD is repulsed by the diterpene molecule through obliteration and reciprocated binding. We report first that forskolin plays a crucial role in the inhibition of protein-protein interaction of RBD and ACE2 when docked with either of the protein.

Keywords

SARS-CoV-2, S protein RBD, human ACE2 receptor, forskolin, Plectranthus barbatus, Coleus forskohlii

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