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Review
. 2021 Mar;35(3):1230-1236.
doi: 10.1002/ptr.6887. Epub 2020 Oct 9.

A role for quercetin in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Giuseppe Derosa  1   2 , Pamela Maffioli  1 , Angela D'Angelo  2 , Francesco Di Pierro  3
Affiliations
Review

A role for quercetin in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Giuseppe Derosa et al. Phytother Res. 2021 Mar.

Abstract

Several months ago, an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown aetiology was detected in Wuhan City (China) and the aetiological agent of the atypical pneumonia was isolated by the Chinese authorities as novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV or SARS-CoV-2). The WHO announced this new disease was to be known as "COVID-19." When looking for new antiviral compounds, knowledge of the main viral proteins is fundamental. The major druggable targets of SARS-CoV-2 include 3-chymotrypsin-like protease (3CLpro), papain-like protease (PLpro), RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, and spike (S) protein. Quercetin inhibits 3CLpro and PLpro with a docking binding energy corresponding to -6.25 and -4.62 kcal/mol, respectively. Quercetin has a theoretical, but significant, capability to interfere with SARS-CoV-2 replication, with the results showing this to be the fifth best compound out of 18 candidates. On the basis of the clinical COVID-19 manifestations, the multifaceted aspect of quercetin as both antiinflammatory and thrombin-inhibitory actions, should be taken into consideration.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; infectious diseases; nutraceutical; quercetin.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organisation or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. No writing assistance was utilised in the production of this manuscript.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Chemical structure of quercetin
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
A reasonable target for structure‐based drug discovery was identified to be the disruption of the viral S protein‐ACE2 receptor interface. Rendering of nCoV‐2019 S‐protein and ACE2 receptor. Green represents the interface targeted for docking. Source: Smith and Smith (2020), ChemRxiv [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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