Issue 51, 2022

Evaluation of antiviral activity of Carica papaya leaves against SARS-CoV-2 assisted by metabolomic profiling

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a huge health crisis all over the globe. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus responsible for the disease and it is highly contagious leaving millions of confirmed infected cases and a dangerous death toll. Carica papaya is a tropical plant known for its antiviral activity since it possesses different classes of compounds that are believed to combat various viral classes. In this study, the extracts prepared from C. papaya leaves cultivated in Egypt were evaluated for their anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity using crystal violet assay and for their cytotoxicity through MTT assay. The total methanolic extract, n-hexane, ethyl acetate, and n-butanol fractions of papaya leaves were used in the study and the results revealed that the n-hexane fraction has a high anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity with an IC50 value = 1.98 μg mL−1. Moreover, it also showed a high selectivity index value = 104.7. Dereplication of the secondary metabolites in the crude methanolic extract of C. papaya leaves revealed the presence of different classes of compounds including sterols, terpenes, fatty acid, alkaloids and flavonoids that are known to possess antiviral activities against various classes of viruses. The current study was assisted by molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulation and MM-PBSA calculations for the annotated compounds against 6 SARS-CoV-2 target proteins. The results of these in silico-based investigations showed high to moderate binding on the targeted proteins. This postulation may instigate further research studies concerning the compounds responsible for this high anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of the n-hexane fraction of C. papaya leaves.

Graphical abstract: Evaluation of antiviral activity of Carica papaya leaves against SARS-CoV-2 assisted by metabolomic profiling

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 jul 2022
Accepted
11 nov 2022
First published
16 nov 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2022,12, 32844-32852

Evaluation of antiviral activity of Carica papaya leaves against SARS-CoV-2 assisted by metabolomic profiling

A. Adel, M. S. Elnaggar, A. Albohy, A. A. Elrashedy, A. Mostafa, O. Kutkat, U. R. Abdelmohsen, E. Al-Sayed and M. A. Rabeh, RSC Adv., 2022, 12, 32844 DOI: 10.1039/D2RA04600H

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