New model to enable drug predictions against Covid-19

London, Nov 29 : Researchers have developed a computational model of a human lung cell which has been used to understand how SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid-19 disease, uses the host to survive, and to enable drug predictions for treating the virus.
Using a computer model of a human lung cell metabolism, the study published in the journal Life Science Alliance, have captured the stoichiometric amino and nucleic acid requirements of SARS-CoV-2.
Their model has identified host-based metabolic perturbations inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 reproduction, highlighting reactions in the central metabolism, as well as amino acid and nucleotide biosynthesis pathways.
In fact, researchers found that only a few of these metabolic perturbations are able to selectively inhibit virus reproduction.
“We have created a stoichiometric biomass function for the Covid-19-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus and incorporated this into a human lung cell genome-scale metabolic model,” said study author Orkun Soyer, from the University of Warwick in the UK.
“We then predicted reaction perturbations that can inhibit SARS-CoV-2 reproduction in general or selectively, without inhibiting the host metabolic maintenance,” Soyer added.