Antiviral activity of curcumin and its analogs selected by artificial intelligence-supported activity prediction system in SARS-CoV-2-infected VeroE6 cells

Curcumin has been reported to exert its anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity through multiple mechanisms including inhibition of spike receptor-binding domain (RBD) angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) binding. To identify more potent compounds, we tested curcumin and analogs for RBD-ACE2 binding inhibitory antiviral in SARS-CoV-2-infected cells. An artificial intelligence (AI) -supported prediction system was used select the 116 compounds with a docking score range -8.7 -4.3 kcal/mol were selected from 334 analogs. These narrowed down 10 curcumin, confirmatory studies. showed significant correlation (rs=0.685, P=0.029) between IC20 values spike-RBD-ACE2 EC50 activity, indicating that mediated by inhibition. Based on assumption site is different anti-spike RBD antibody drugs, it expected these pharmaceutical or pharmacokinetic modification, development derivatives would contribute supplementing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.