Protein Engineering, a Robust Tool to Engineer Novel Functions in Protein

Designing effective diagnostics, biotherapeutics, and biocatalysts are a few interesting potential outcomes of protein engineering. Despite being just a few decades old, the discipline of de novo protein designing has provided a foundation for remarkable outcomes in the pharmaceuticals and enzyme industries. The technologies that will have the biggest impact on current protein therapeutics include engineered natural protein variants, Fc fusion protein, and antibody engineering. Furthermore, designing protein scaffolds can be used in developing next-generation antibodies and in transplanting active sites in the enzyme. The article highlights the important tools and techniques used in protein engineering and their application in the engineering of enzymes and therapeutic proteins. This review further sheds light on the engineering of superoxide dismutase, an enzyme responsible for catalyzing the conversion of superoxide radicals to oxygen and hydrogen peroxide by catalyzing a redox reaction at the metal center while concurrently oxidizing and reducing superoxide free radicals.

SAR based Review on Diverse Heterocyclic Compounds with Various Potential Molecular Targets in the Fight against COVID-19: A Medicinal Chemist Perspective

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was reported to be transmitted from bats to humans and, became a pandemic in 2020. COVID-19 is responsible for millions of deaths worldwide and still, the numbers are increasing. Further, despite the availability of vaccines, mutation in the virus continuously poses a threat of re-emergence of the more lethal form of the virus. So far, the repurposing of drugs has been exercised heavily for the identification of therapeutic agents against COVID-19, which led FDA to approve many drugs for the same e.g., remdesivir, favipiravir, ribavirin, etc. The anti-COVID drugs explored via other approaches include nirmatrelvir (used in combination with ritonavir as Paxlovid), tixagevimab and cilgavimab (both used in combination with each other) and others. However, these approved drugs failed to achieve a significant clinical outcome. Globally, natural bioactive have also been explored for anti-COVID-19 effects, based on their traditional medicinal values. Although the clinical findings suggest that FDA-approved drugs and natural bioactives can help reducing the overall mortality rate but the significant clinical outcome was not achieved. Therefore, the focus has been shifted towards new drug development. In line with that, a lot of work has been done and still going on to explore heterocyclic compounds as potent anti- COVID-19 drugs. Several heterocyclic scaffolds have been previously reported with potent antiinflammatory, anticancer, anti-viral, antimicrobial and anti-tubercular effects. Few of them are under consideration for clinical trials whereas others are under preclinical investigation. Hence, this review discusses the evidence of rationally designed and tested heterocyclic compounds acting on different targets against COVID-19. The present article will help the researches and will serve as a pivotal resource in the design and development of novel anti-COVID-19 drugs.