Unravelling Vitamins as Wonder Molecules for Covid-19 Management via Structure-based Virtual Screening

The emergence situation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has realised the global scientific communities to develop strategies for immediate priorities and long-term approaches for utilization of existing knowledge and resources which can be diverted to pandemic preparedness planning. Lack of proper vaccine candidate and therapeutic management has accelerated the researchers to repurpose the existing drugs with known preclinical and toxicity profiles, which can easily enter Phase 3 or 4 or can be used directly in clinical settings. We focused to justify even exploration of supplements, nutrients and vitamins to dampen the disease burden of the current pandemic may play a crucial role for its management. We have explored structure based virtual screening of 15 vitamins against non-structural (NSP3, NSP5, ORF7a, NSP12, ORF3a), structural (Spike & Hemagglutinin esterase) and host protein furin. The in silico analysis exhibited that vitamin B12, Vitamin B9, Vitamin D3 determined suitable binding while vitamin B15 manifested remarkable H-bond interactions with all targets. Vitamin B12 bestowed the lowest energies with human furin and SARS-COV-2 RNA dependent RNA polymerase. Furin mediated cleavage of the viral spike glycoprotein is directly related to enhanced virulence of SARS-CoV-2. In contrast to these, vitamin B12 showed zero affinity with SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. These upshots intimate that Vitamin B12 could be the wonder molecule to shrink the virulence by hindering the furin mediated entry of spike to host cell. These identified molecules may effectively assist in SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic management to boost the immunity by inhibiting the virus imparting relief in lung inflammation.