Rutin & Hesperidin present in Vitamin C Supplements,Citrus Fruits & Moringa leaves exhibit very high inhibition against COVID-19 Protease than Remdesivir & Hydroxychloroquine

Abstract

Currently the new Coronavirus COVID-19, also known as SARS-CoV-2, has infected nearly 3 million patients and nearly 200,000+ people have lost their lives due to this pandemic. There is an urgent need to find an antiviral agent that may slow down the spread of the virus. The aim of this study is to assess and evaluate some FDA Approved drugs as potential inhibitors for COVID-19 Main Protease (Mpro) (PDB code: 6LU7). as well for Spike Protein (PDB code: 6CS2). This will be done by blind molecular docking using PyRx and Auto Vina software. The compounds Hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir were used for comparative study. The binding energies obtained from the docking of 6LU7 (Main Protease) with Rutin, Hesperidin were -15.5,-14.3 kcal/mol & binding energies obtained from the docking of 6CS2 (Spike Protein) with Rutin, Hesperidin were -18.1,18.0 kcal/mol, whereas Remdesivir and Hydroxychloroquine binding affinities were -13.1,-9.3 kcal/mol and -17.9,-12.2 kcal/mol respecting against Main Protease and Spike Proteins.Many users in Twitter also reported recovering from COVID-19 after taking a combination of Vitamin C and Zinc supplements.All these drugs should be evaluated for further use by conducting in vitro tests and if they are successful they should tested for further use in clinical trials against COVID-19 as they are readily available in the market and also have been approved by FDA.In addition to it, these drugs can be also used as preventive medicine since they are present in Citrus fruits,Moringa leaves and Vitamin C supplements. People can be encouraged to take these supplements as preventive medicine as these have literally no side effects and these can very well slow the spread of COVID-19.