Exploration of Luteolin as Potential Anti-COVID19 agent: Molecular Docking, Molecular Dynamic Simulation, ADMET and DFT analysis

Background: Recently, coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has become a pandemic disease of the respiratory tract having mild to severe symptoms of pneumonia. No clinical antiviral agent is available so far, however, several repurposing drugs and vaccine are being given to individuals or in clinical trials against SARS-CoV-2 Objective: The aim of this study is to uncover the potential effects of Luteolin (Lut) as an inhibitor of SARS-CoV2 encoded proteins via utilizing computational tools Method: Molecular modelling to unfold the anti-SARS-CoV2 potential of Lut along with reference drugs namely remdesivir and nafamostat was performed by the use of molecular docking, molecular dynamic (MD) simulation, absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, toxicity (ADMET) and density functional theory (DFT) methods against the five different SARS-CoV-2 encoded key proteins and one human receptor protein. The chemical reactivity of Luteolin is done through prediction of HOMO-LUMO gap energy and other chemical descriptors analysis Results: In the present study, Lut binds effectively in the binding pockets of spike glycoprotein (6VSB), ADP phosphatase of NSP3 (6W02), and RNA dependent RNA polymerase (7AAP) protein receptors with significant values of docking scores -7.00, -7.25, and -6.46 respectively as compared to reference drugs remdesivir and nafamostat. Conclusion:: Thus, Lut can act as therapeutic agent and is orally safe for human consumption as predicted by molecular modelling against SARS-CoV-2 in the treatment of COVID-19