RESEARCH ARTICLE
Study of the Interaction of Zinc Cation with Azithromycin and its Significance in the COVID-19 Treatment: A Molecular Approach
Jacques H. Poupaert1, Blanche Aguida2, Codjo Hountondji2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 14
First Page: 33
Last Page: 40
Publisher ID: TOBIOCJ-14-33
DOI: 10.2174/1874091X02014010033
Article History:
Received Date: 30/5/2020Revision Received Date: 30/7/2020
Acceptance Date: 10/8/2020
Electronic publication date: 22/09/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
On account of the current COVID-19 pandemic, we have explored the importance of azithromycin and zinc in the treatment of the coronavirus disease by studying the interaction between the cation Zn++ and azithromycin with the tools of the semi-empirical quantum mechanics PM3 method.
Methods:
By this approach, the niche in which Zn++ is located was determined. Zn++ creates a strong clastic binding between an amine and a hydroxyl group located on the amino-hexose side-chain. Such an interaction serves as a shuttle and allows zinc cation to invade endocellular structures.
Results:
In this triple collaborative association, the role of hydroxychloroquine would be more that of a chaotropic agent at plasmic membranes, which facilitates access to the azithromycin-Zn++ equipage into key internal compartments.
Conclusion:
Finally, we show that both azithromycin and Zn++ are susceptible to play a direct role against the replication and the assembly of SARS-CoV-2 particles.
