Garcinia cambogia phenolics as potent anti-COVID-19 agents: phytochemical profiling, biological activities, and molecular docking

Abstract

COVID-19 is a disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and became a pandemic in a critically short time. Phenolic secondary metabolites attracted much attention from the pharmaceutical industries for their easily accessible natural sources and proven antiviral activity. In our mission, a metabolomics study of the Garcinia cambogia Roxb. fruit rind was performed using LC-HRESIMS to investigate its chemical profile, especially the polar aspects, followed by a detailed phytochemical analysis, which led to the isolation of eight known compounds. Using spectrometric techniques, the isolated compounds were identified as quercetin, amentoflavone, vitexin, rutin, naringin, catechin, p-coumaric, and gallic acids. The antiviral activities of the isolated compounds were investigated using two assays; the 3CL-M^pro enzyme showed that naringin had a potent effect with IC₅₀ 16.62 μg/mL, followed by catechin and gallic acid (IC₅₀ 26.2, 30.35 μg/mL, respectively), while the direct antiviral inhibition effect of naringin confirmed the potency with an EC₅₀ of 0.0169 μM. To show the molecular interaction, in situ molecular docking was carried out using a COVID-19 protease enzyme. Both biological effects and docking studies showed the hydrophobic interactions with Gln 189 or Glu 166, per the predicated binding pose of the isolated naringin.

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© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11192521

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https://uws.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/23233611-8573-40e6-8f7b-9bcee15a0d96