AUTHOR=Halma Matthew T. J. , Wever Mark J. A. , Abeln Sanne , Roche Didier , Wuite Gijs J. L. TITLE=Therapeutic potential of compounds targeting SARS-CoV-2 helicase JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry VOLUME=10 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2022.1062352 DOI=10.3389/fchem.2022.1062352 ISSN=2296-2646 ABSTRACT=

The economical and societal impact of COVID-19 has made the development of vaccines and drugs to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection a priority. While the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein has been widely explored as a drug target, the SARS-CoV-2 helicase (nsp13) does not have any approved medication. The helicase shares 99.8% similarity with its SARS-CoV-1 homolog and was shown to be essential for viral replication. This review summarizes and builds on existing research on inhibitors of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 helicases. Our analysis on the toxicity and specificity of these compounds, set the road going forward for the repurposing of existing drugs and the development of new SARS-CoV-2 helicase inhibitors.