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?:abstract
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BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), is currently posing significant threats to public health worldwide. It is notable that a substantial proportion of patients with sever COVID‐19 have coexisting diabetic conditions, indicating the progression and outcome of COVID‐19 may relate to diabetes. However, it is still unclear whether diabetic treatment principles can be used for the treatment of COVID‐19. METHODS: We conducted a computational approach to screen all commonly used clinical oral hypoglycemic drugs to identify the potential inhibitors for the main protease (M(pro)) of SARS‐CoV‐2, which is one of the key drug targets for anti‐COVID‐19 drug discovery. RESULTS: Six antidiabetic drugs with docking scores higher than 8.0 (cutoff value), including repaglinide, canagliflozin, glipizide, gliquidone, glimepiride, and linagliptin, were predicted as the promising inhibitors of M(pro). Interestingly, repaglinide, one of the six antidiabetic drugs with the highest docking score for M(pro), was similar to a previously predicted active molecule nelfinavir, which is a potential anti‐HIV and anti‐COVID‐19 drug. Moreover, we found repaglinide shared similar docking pose and pharmacophores with a reported ligand (N3 inhibitor) and nelfinavir, demonstrating that repaglinide would interact with M(pro) in a similar way. CONCLUSION: These results indicated that these six antidiabetic drugs may have an extra effect on the treatment of COVID‐19, although further studies are necessary to confirm these findings.
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