Excavating phytochemicals from plants possessing antiviral activities for identifying SARS-CoV hemagglutinin-esterase inhibitors by diligent computational workflow

Coronaviruses (CoVs) belong to a group of RNA viruses that cause diseases in vertebrates including. Newer and deadlier than SARS CoV-2 are sought to appear in future for which the scientific community must be prepared with the strategies for their control. Spike protein (S-protein) of all the CoVs require angiotensin-converting enzyme2 (ACE2), while CoVs also require hemagglutinin-acetylesterase (HE) glycoprotein receptor to simultaneously interact with O-acetylated sialic acids on host cells, both these interactions enable viral particle to enter host cell leading to its infection. Target inhibition of viral S-protein and HE glycoprotein receptor can lead to a development of therapy against the SARS CoV-2. The proposition is to recognize molecules from the bundle of phytochemicals of medicinal plants known to possess antiviral potentials as a lead that could interact and mask the active site of, HE glycoprotein which would ideally bind to O-acetylated sialic acids on human host cells. Such molecules can be addressed as ‘HE glycoprotein blockers’. A library of 110 phytochemicals from <i>Withania somnifera</i>, <i>Asparagus racemosus</i>, <i>Zinziber officinalis</i>, <i>Allium sativum</i>, <i>Curcuma longa</i> and <i>Adhatoda vasica</i> was constructed and was used under present study. <i>In silico</i> analysis was employed with plant-derived phytochemicals. The molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulations over the scale of 1000 ns (1 μs) and ADMET prediction revealed that the <i>Withania somnifera</i> (ashwagandha) and <i>Asparagus racemosus</i> (shatavari) plants possessed various steroidal saponins and alkaloids which could potentially inhibit the COVID-19 virus and even other CoVs targeted HE glycoprotein receptor. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma