Elsevier

Biosafety and Health

Volume 3, Issue 5, October 2021, Pages 249-263
Biosafety and Health

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and RNA dependent RNA polymerase as targets for drug and vaccine development: A review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bsheal.2021.07.003Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • The spike (S) protein and RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) are targets for vaccine and drug design.

  • The S protein could be altered by monoclonal antibodies, small molecules, chloroquine etc.

  • The RdRp could be targeted by drugs such as remdesivir, favipiravir, and Emetine.

  • The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that are currently approved for clinical use are design to encode S protein.

Abstract

The present pandemic has posed a crisis to the economy of the world and the health sector. Therefore, the race to expand research to understand some good molecular targets for vaccine and therapeutic development for SARS-CoV-2 is inevitable. The newly discovered coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is a positive sense, single-stranded RNA, and enveloped virus, assigned to the beta CoV genus. The virus (SARS-CoV-2) is more infectious than the previously detected coronaviruses (MERS and SARS). Findings from many studies have revealed that S protein and RdRp are good targets for drug repositioning, novel therapeutic development (antibodies and small molecule drugs), and vaccine discovery. Therapeutics such as chloroquine, convalescent plasma, monoclonal antibodies, spike binding peptides, and small molecules could alter the ability of S protein to bind to the ACE-2 receptor, and drugs such as remdesivir (targeting SARS-CoV-2 RdRp), favipir, and emetine could prevent SASR-CoV-2 RNA synthesis. The novel vaccines such as mRNA1273 (Moderna), 3LNP-mRNAs (Pfizer/BioNTech), and ChAdOx1-S (University of Oxford/Astra Zeneca) targeting S protein have proven to be effective in combating the present pandemic. Further exploration of the potential of S protein and RdRp is crucial in fighting the present pandemic.

Keywords

SARS-CoV-2
Spike protein (S protein)
RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp)
Drug repositioning
SARS-CoV-2-vaccines

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