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32 M U T S P I R I T / / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0
MUT researchers take on
COVID-19
MUT research contributes to search for COVID-19 vaccine
Mangosuthu University of Technology researchers have published a peer-reviewed
research paper on the feasibility of potential drugs against the coronavirus. Dr Devashan
Naidoo, Dr Taurai Mutanda and Professor Akash Anandraj, all from the Department
of Nature Conservation’s Centre for Algal Biotechnology (CAB), collaborated with
their counterpart at the University of North Bengal in India to conduct a three-month
computational study on COVID-19.
Dr Naidoo, the principal investigator, said: “We
wanted to determine the feasibility of cyanobacterial
metabolites as potential drugs against the virus. For
a drug to be effective, it is required that it binds to the
virus at functional sites.”
“We found that several compounds were able to bind
to the proteins with relative potency. However, for a
drug to be effective it needs to also be safe and non-
toxic,” said Dr Naidoo. The research team evaluated
the toxicity of each of the compounds and found that
one in particular, deoxycylindrospermopsin, was the
safest. The safety and stability that the compound
displayed are the hallmarks of a potential drug.
In terms of how South Africans will benefit from the
research, Dr Naidoo said the compounds evaluated in
the study are proposed as candidate lead drugs that
require further evaluation in vitro and in vivo. “Since
we predicted that these compounds have the ability
to bind to functional components of the viral genome,
they could potentially inhibit the processes that lead
to viral replication,” said Dr Naidoo. He added that it
would give the host the ability to effectively control
the spread of the virus within the body. He said this
research could pave the way for the development of
effective therapeutics in the fight against COVID-19 in
South Africa as well as globally.
However, Dr Naidoo admitted that researchers were
still far from developing an effective treatment or
vaccine for the virus, although great strides have been
made in this regard. There are some 145 vaccines
Dr Devashan Naidoo
that are currently undergoing clinical trials globally
and several drugs that are currently being evaluated.
“However, the processes are complex and require a
lot of time and effort. For instance, the compounds
that we propose require further evaluation under
laboratory conditions as well as clinical trials prior to
approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
This process could take months,” he said.
Dr Naidoo said the research was done over a period
of three months during South Africa’s lockdown. The
title of the paper is “Cyanobacterial metabolites as
promising drug leads against the Mpro and PLpro of
SARS-CoV-2: an in silico analysis”.