SAR based Review on Diverse Heterocyclic Compounds with Various Potential Molecular Targets in the Fight against COVID-19: A Medicinal Chemist Perspective

Abstract

Abstract: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was reported to be transmitted from bats to humans and, became a pandemic in 2020. COVID-19 is responsible for millions of deaths worldwide and still, the numbers are increasing. Further, despite the availability of vaccines, mutation in the virus continuously poses a threat of re-emergence of the more lethal form of the virus. So far, the repur-posing of drugs has been exercised heavily for the identification of therapeutic agents against COVID-19, which led FDA to approve many drugs for the same e.g., remdesivir, favipiravir, ribavi-rin, etc. The anti-COVID drugs explored via other approaches include nirmatrelvir (used in combi-nation with ritonavir as Paxlovid), tixagevimab and cilgavimab (both used in combination with each other) and others. However, these approved drugs failed to achieve a significant clinical outcome. Globally, natural bioactive have also been explored for anti-COVID-19 effects, based on their tradi-tional medicinal values. Although the clinical findings suggest that FDA-approved drugs and natu-ral bioactives can help reducing the overall mortality rate but the significant clinical outcome was not achieved. Therefore, the focus has been shifted towards new drug development. In line with that, a lot of work has been done and still going on to explore heterocyclic compounds as potent an-ti-COVID-19 drugs. Several heterocyclic scaffolds have been previously reported with potent anti-inflammatory, anticancer, anti-viral, antimicrobial and anti-tubercular effects. Few of them are un-der consideration for clinical trials whereas others are under preclinical investigation. Hence, this review discusses the evidence of rationally designed and tested heterocyclic compounds acting on different targets against COVID-19. The present article will help the researches and will serve as a pivotal resource in the design and development of novel anti-COVID-19 drugs.