Written By: Satata Karmakar | Published : November 29, 2020 6:46 PM IST
New model to enable drug predictions against COVID-19 developed. (File photo)
Researchers have developed a computational model of a human lung cell which has been used to understand how SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid-19 disease, uses the host to survive and to enable drug predictions for treating the virus.
Using a computer model of a human lung cell metabolism, the study published in the journal Life Science Alliance, have captured the stoichiometric amino and nucleic acid requirements of SARS-CoV-2.
Their model has identified host-based metabolic perturbations inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 reproduction, highlighting reactions in the central metabolism, as well as amino acid and nucleotide biosynthesis pathways.
In fact, researchers found that only a few of these metabolic perturbations can selectively inhibit virus reproduction.
"We have created a stoichiometric biomass function for the Covid-19-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus and incorporated this into a human lung cell genome-scale metabolic model," said study author Orkun Soyer, from the University of Warwick in the UK.
"We then predicted reaction perturbations that can inhibit SARS-CoV-2 reproduction in general or selectively, without inhibiting the host metabolic maintenance," Soyer added.
The predicted reactions primarily fall onto glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation pathways, and their connections to amino acid biosynthesis pathways.
Together, these results highlight the possibility of targeting host metabolism for inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 reproduction in human cells in general and in human lung cells specifically.
"More research needs to be carried out to explore SARS-CoV-2 infected cells and their metabolism, however, the model developed here by the researchers can be used as a starting point for testing out specific drug predictions," said author Hadrien Delattre.
Coronavirus cases in India are steadily on the rise with 41,810 new infections in the last 24 hours taking the tally to 93,92,919. There were 496 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours and the number of active cases went down by 984. There are 4,53,956 active cases in the country. Over 42,000 people recovered from the deadly disease in the last 24 hours taking the total recoveries to over 88 lakhs. The total deaths in the country stand at 1,36,696.
(With inputs from IANS)
