From Plants to Patients: High-Throughput Screening of Traditional Medicinal Compounds Coupled with Host–Virus Interaction Profiling

Sharma et al. (2024) highlight curcumin’s antiviral potential, but systematic, high-throughput studies of plant-derived compounds remain rare in HCV research. This project proposes coupling large-scale compound screening (including compounds from diverse ethnopharmacological sources) with transcriptomics, proteomics, and interactome profiling in infected hepatocyte models. This dual-layered approach allows not just identification of new inhibitors, but also elucidation of their mechanisms—whether they target the virus directly, modulate host pathways, or both. Such a synthesis of drug discovery and systems biology could uncover multi-target or “network pharmacology” agents, particularly valuable for hard-to-treat or resistant HCV strains. It stands apart from current QSAR and structure-based screenings by integrating functional genomics, and could bridge the gap between traditional medicine and molecular virology.

References:

1. Promising Potential of Curcumin and Related Compounds for Antiviral Drug Discovery.. Archana Sharma, Twinkle Sharma, R. Bhaskar, M. Ola, Alok Sharma, Vijay Kumar Thakur, P. C. Sharma (2024). Medicinal chemistry.
2. Promising Potential of Curcumin and Related Compounds for Antiviral Drug Discovery.. Archana Sharma, Twinkle Sharma, R. Bhaskar, M. Ola, Alok Sharma, Vijay Kumar Thakur, P. C. Sharma (2024). Medicinal chemistry.