Focused drug discovery against SARS-CoV-2: Targeting cell invasion and replication

RNA viruses are etiologic agents of zoonotic, acute and mortal diseases, including COVID-19, in humans. Compared with DNA viruses, RNA viruses generally have very high mutation rates, which hamper the development of long-term effective vaccines. Antivirals are useful for prevention and treatment of these illnesses, alone or in combination with immunization. The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has shown the urgent need for antivirals to limit the course of the infection. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 encodes structural and nonstructural proteins that play key roles during infection. The structural spike glycoprotein is critical for virus recognition and internalization by the host cells. The non-structural viral proteases are essential for pathogen replication and for antagonizing the host immune response. This project aims to contribute to the development of potential antiviral agents against SARS-related infections by addressing the identification and characterization of drug-like compounds targeting these two major and essential viral components