Title:Natural and Synthetic Coumarins as Potential Drug Candidates
against SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19
Volume: 32
Issue: 3
Author(s): Iara da Silva Santos, Letícia Oliveira Magalhães, Roberta Katlen Fusco Marra, Camilo Henrique da Silva Lima, Lidilhone Hamerski, Magaly Girão Albuquerque and Bárbara Vasconcellos da Silva*
Affiliation:
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidade Federal
do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Química, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Keywords:
Coronavirus disease 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, coumarins, antiviral drugs, computer simulations, molecular docking, molecular dynamics, cysteine-proteases.
Abstract: COVID-19, an airborne disease caused by a betacoronavirus named SARS--
CoV-2, was officially declared a pandemic in early 2020, resulting in more than 770 million
confirmed cases and over 6.9 million deaths by September 2023. Although the introduction
of vaccines in late 2020 helped reduce the number of deaths, the global effort to
fight COVID-19 is far from over. While significant progress has been made in a short period,
the fight against SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 and other potential pandemic threats
continues. Like AIDS and hepatitis C epidemics, controlling the spread of COVID-19
will require the development of multiple drugs to weaken the virus's resistance to different
drug treatments. Therefore, it is essential to continue developing new drug candidates
derived from natural or synthetic small molecules. Coumarins are a promising
drug design and development scaffold due to their synthetic versatility and unique physicochemical
properties. Numerous examples reported in scientific literature, mainly by in
silico prospection, demonstrate their potential contribution to the rapid development of
drugs against SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 and other emergent and reemergent viruses.
