The Novel Drug Discovery to Combat COVID-19 by Repressing Important VirusProteins Involved in Pathogenesis Using Medicinal Herbal Compounds

Background: the cause of covid-19 global pandemic is sars-cov-2. given the outbreakof this disease, it is so important to find a treatment. one strategy to cope withcovid-19 is to use the active ingredients of medicinal plants. in this study, the effect ofactive substances was surveyed in inhibiting four important druggable targets, includings protein, 3clpro, rdrp, and n protein. rdrp controls the replication of sarscov-2 and is crucial for its life cycle. 3clpro is the main protease of the virus andcould be another therapeutic target. moreover, n protein and s protein are responsiblefor sars-cov-2 assembly and attaching, respectively.methods: the 3d structures of herbal active ingredients were prepared and dockedwith the mentioned sars-cov-2 proteins to obtain their affinity. then, available antiviraldrugs introduced in other investigations were docked using similar tools andcompared with the results of this study. finally, other properties of natural compoundswere uncovered for drug designing.results: the outcomes of the study revealed that linarin, amentoflavone, (-)-catechin gallate and hypericin from chrysanthemum morifolium, hypericum perforatum,humulus lupulus, and hibiscus sabdariffa had the highest affinity for thesebasic proteins and in some cases, their affinity was much higher than antiviral medicines.conclusion: in addition to having high affinity, these herb active ingredients have antioxidant,vasoprotective, anticarcinogenic, and antiviral properties. therefore, theycan be used as extremely safe therapeutic compounds in drug design studies to controlcovid-19.