Millet Derived Flavonoids as Potential SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors: A Computational Approach

The on-going pandemic COVID-19 has emerged as a major health threat across the globe. At present, anti-viral drug discoveries are of great importance in combating the pandemic. Millets are known to contain numerous flavonoids with potential anti-viral properties. However, their anti-viral efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 is yet to be studied. The study uses the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (M^pro) as the potential drug target and docks with eleven millet derived flavonoids taking HIV protease inhibiting drugs nelfinavir and saquinavir as control. AutoDock Vina was used for assessing the binding affinities and strength of binding of flavonoids present in millets with the target protein M^pro. Further, the drug-likeness and pharmacokinetics properties of these flavonoids were analyzed using admetSAR. The ADMET analysis showed that isoorientin, orientin, vitexin, meletin, catechin, and myricetin possess potential mutagenic property while daidzein could have a negative effect on reproductive making these compounds as poor candidates for drug development against SARS-CoV-2. Based on the docking result and positive ADMET properties, the present study infers that apigenin may be considered as a potential inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 M^pro and may be further investigated to test its anti-viral activities using in-vitro and in-vivo study.