A community effort in SARS-CoV-2 drug discovery.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a substantial threat to human lives and is likely to do so for years to come. Despite the availability of vaccines, searching for efficient small-molecule drugs that are widely available, including in low- and middle-income countries, is an ongoing challenge. In this work, we report the results of an open science community effort, the "Billion molecules against COVID-19 challenge", to identify small-molecule inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 or relevant human receptors. Participating teams used a wide variety of computational methods to screen a minimum of 1 billion virtual molecules against 6 protein targets. Overall, 31 teams participated, and they suggested a total of 639,024 molecules, which were subsequently ranked to find 'consensus compounds'. The organizing team coordinated with various contract research organizations (CROs) and collaborating institutions to synthesize and test 878 compounds for biological activity against proteases (Nsp5, Nsp3, TMPRSS2), nucleocapsid N, RdRP (only the Nsp12 domain), and (alpha) spike protein S. Overall, 27 compounds with weak inhibition/binding were experimentally identified by binding-, cleavage-, and/or viral suppression assays and are presented here. Open science approaches such as the one presented here contribute to the knowledge base of future drug discovery efforts in finding better SARS-CoV-2 treatments.

Unraveling viral drug targets: a deep learning-based approach for the identification of potential binding sites.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spurred a wide range of approaches to control and combat the disease. However, selecting an effective antiviral drug target remains a time-consuming challenge. Computational methods offer a promising solution by efficiently reducing the number of candidates. In this study, we propose a structure- and deep learning-based approach that identifies vulnerable regions in viral proteins corresponding to drug binding sites. Our approach takes into account the protein dynamics, accessibility and mutability of the binding site and the putative mechanism of action of the drug. We applied this technique to validate drug targeting toward severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike glycoprotein S. Our findings reveal a conformation- and oligomer-specific glycan-free binding site proximal to the receptor binding domain. This site comprises topologically important amino acid residues. Molecular dynamics simulations of Spike in complex with candidate drug molecules bound to the potential binding sites indicate an equilibrium shifted toward the inactive conformation compared with drug-free simulations. Small molecules targeting this binding site have the potential to prevent the closed-to-open conformational transition of Spike, thereby allosterically inhibiting its interaction with human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor. Using a pseudotyped virus-based assay with a SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody, we identified a set of hit compounds that exhibited inhibition at micromolar concentrations.