3.4.1 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp)
The most important conserved protein in the coronavirus
replication/transcription complex is RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp)
(nsp12) or RNA replicase (Gao et al., 2020). Genome multiplication is
critical in the viral life cycle and can be an attractive target for the
intervention in the infection progress.
The antiviral agents of remdesivir, favipiravir, penciclovir can inhibit
the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of many RNA viruses, specially
the influenza virus. Wang et al. determined the efficiency of these
agents on infected Vero E6 cells with 2019-nCoVBetaCoV (Li and De
Clercq, 2020; Wang et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020b). The high
concentrations of penciclovir (EC50 = 95.96 μM) and favipiravir
(EC50 = 61.88 μM) were required to reduce the viral infection while
remdesivir (EC50 = 0.77 μM) potently blocked the virus infection at
low-micromolar concentration.