Bioinformatic approaches towards identification of potential repurposable drugs for COVID-19

Abstract Repurposing existing drugs approved for other conditions is crucial to identifying specific therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19 (coronavirus disease-2019) pandemic. Towards this attempt, it is important to understand how this virus hijacks the host system during the course of infection and determine potential virus- and host-targeted inhibitors. This study elucidates the underlying virus-host interaction based on differentially expressed gene profiling, functional enrichment and pathway analysis, protein-protein and protein-drug interactions utilizing the information on transcriptional response to SARS-CoV-2 infection from GSE 147507 dataset containing COVID-19 case relative to healthy control and infected cell culture compared to uninfected one. Low IFN signaling, chemokines level elevation, and proinflammatory cytokines release were observed markedly. We identified MYC-rapamycin and ABCG2-rapamycin interactions, and unique gene signatures in case (regulation of protein modification and MAPK signaling) as well as in cell (metabolic dysregulation and interferon signaling) different from known COVID-19 genes.