A Research team from School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University collaborated with researchers from Philippines, one of the Belt and Road Initiative partner countries, to create a coronavirus computational drug screen system earlier this year during the pandemic.

To find potential drug candidates to combat SARS-CoV2, which causes the coronavirus disease, Prof. Dong-Qing WEI and his research team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University performed molecular dynamics simulations for the lead compounds screened by their collaborators, Prof. Allan Patrick Macabeo and his fellows from University of Santo Tomas in Philippines. The study focused on the exploitation of fungal secondary metabolites with profound antiviral activity on a range of known pathogenic viruses such as the human immunodeficiency virus, influenza virus, herpes simplex virus, and hepatitis C virus—as potential drug prototypes against the SARS-CoV2 virus. Through bioinformatics and computational modelling, the researchers identified compounds that can potentially hamper the attachment, replication, protein maturation and even host immunity evasion potential of SARS-CoV2. These viral mechanisms are important virulent factors that ascertain the successful invasion and infectivity of the virus.

The study revealed that quinazoline B, a fungal-derived natural product, has promising anti-Covid19 properties by inhibiting all five target proteins and enzymes in SARS-CoV2.

The article was published on June 16, 2020 in Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07391102.2020.1776639.