Article Type : Review Article
Authors : Chakraborty AK and Chanda A
Keywords : Non-structural proteins; Corona virus; RNA topoisomerase; D614G spike protein mutation; P4715L RdRP mutation; I300F nsp2 mutation
Corona virus spread is gaining momentum worldwide and every
country is losing lives and lock down has crippled normal life, education and
industry with huge GDP loss. Recently, corona virus research has accelerated
with discovery of many new targets and at least 20 vaccines have been under
clinical trials and three vaccines already have started to inoculate million
people worldwide. However, corona virus is gathering mutations in its genome at
a rate 1-2 nucleotide per month fostering a chance of vaccine failure. Thus,
up-gradation of knowledge is necessary and this review will search recent
development on biochemistry and molecular biology of COVID-19 and related
corona virus like SARS and MERS. A great deal of research has appeared in
reputed journals on sixteen non-structural proteins (nsp1-nsp16). Specifically,
drug discovery against nsp3 protease and nsp12 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase was
phenomenal. Similarly, knowledge of spike protein interaction with ACE-2
receptor of human cells have advanced with development of effective vaccine as
well as other therapeutics. Surely, we will focus on recent bioinformatics
research on non-structural proteins, nsp2, nsp13 and nsp16 those have
implicated as RNA Topoisomerase, RNA helicase-Capping Guanine methyl
transferase and 2’-O rRNA Uridine methyl transferase respectively. We urge to
develop phyto-drugs based on ancient Hindu and Chinese civilization as most
corona virus proteins have been expressed and purified.a