A Summary of Viral Targets and Recently Released PDB IDs of SARS-CoV-2

Drug discovery and development against coronavirus disease 2019 is the utmost need and the most challenging task of the hour.Many research groups from different countries are working continuously in this direction, and till 8 th March 2020, a total of 382 clinical trials have been registered on the WHO's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform [1].There is an urgent need to identify specific targets to design promising therapeutic agents against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19.Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 reveals seven major target proteins that can be considered for drug design against the virus.These include the spike, envelope, membrane, nucleocapsid, protease, hemagglutinin esterase and helicase [2,3].Beyond these, several Non Structural Proteins (NSPs) can also be evaluated as targets for drug development [4].There are only a few Protein Data Bank (PDB) Ids available related to SARS-CoV-2 in the RCSB database.Table 1 summarizes recently released PDB Ids (from 5.2.2020 to 25.3.2020)for various SARS-CoV-2 targets [5].The SARS-CoV-2 genome encodes a relatively large number of proteins [6].The PL proteinase and the 3CL protease cleave two polyproteins to release different types of NSPs.Hence the proteases represent a relevant target for designing drugs against SARS-CoV-2.