India, July 13 -- There have been worldwide efforts for developing cost effective therapeutic options, which can curb the severity of the viral disease in humans, with minimal toxicity. In this context, medicinal plants may provide a way to treat the disease by targeting specific essential proteins of the virus.

Working in this direction, a team of researchers led by Prof Ashok Kumar Patel from the Kusuma School of Biological Sciences (KSBS), IIT Delhi screened about 51 medicinal plants on 3CLProprotease (3-chymotrypsin-like protease) of the virus, which is necessary for processing the viral polyproteins and therefore has emerged as an interesting premise for the development of drugs targeting the virus. The targeting of this protein may...