Exploring the potential of microalgae and cyanobacteria derived antiviral metabolites: Insights from molecular docking studies

Document Type : Regular Issue (Review)

Authors

1 Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza 12613, Egypt

2 Center of Scientific Excellence for Influenza Viruses, National Research Centre, Giza 12622, Egypt

3 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, 12613 Giza, Egypt

Abstract

The world has been confronted with many viral outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics with limited safe antiviral options. There are 219 viral species that have been identified as capable of infecting people. Of them, the yellow fever virus was the first to be identified; yet, every year, three to four new species are still found. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is exacerbated by the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. Animal and human coronavirus infections are typically accompanied by symptoms related to the respiratory and digestive systems. One of the main goals of scientific research is the creation of medications for the prevention and treatment of acute and severe viral infections. Microalgae and cyanobacteria are factories of bioactive phytochemicals with a wide range of biological activities, including antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects. Therefore, special attention has been paid to algal natural compositions such as polysaccharides, alkaloids, lectins, polyphenolic compounds, and pigments, which are extracted from microalgae and cyanobacteria and exhibit antiviral activities. Some studies showed that discovering the inhibitory diagnoses of 23 cyanobacterial compounds against the SARS-CoV-2 that have been well-thought-out as promising drug intents such as cylindrospermopsin, deoxycylindrospermopsin, carrageenan, cryptophycin 52, eucapsitrione, tjipanazole, tolyporphin and apratoxin A. This review deal with the antiviral activities of different microalgal and cyanobacterial metabolites, approaches to enhance their production with different stress conditions and underlined mechanisms or modes of actions by using different docking programs for imagining the 3D structure of a molecule. The molecular docking method is concerned with the optimization of lead molecules, biological pathway assessment, and de novo drug design.

Keywords

Egyptian Journal of Botany
Volume 65, Issue 4
October 2025
Pages 27-46

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics