The Fight against Human Viruses: How NMR Can Help?

Background: COVID-19 has brought the world to its knees, and there is an urgent need for new strategies to identify molecules capable of fighting the pandemic. During the last few decades, NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) spectroscopy has emerged as an intriguing structural biology instrument in the antiviral drug discovery field. Objective: The review highlights how a variety of NMR-based tools can be employed to better understand viral machineries, develop anti-viral agents and set-up diagnostic and therapeutic routes. Methods: Works summarized herein were searched through PubMed database and the Web. Results: The review focuses on a subset of human viruses that have been largely studied through NMR techniques. Indeed, NMR solid- or solution-state methodologies allow to gain structural information on viral proteins and viral genomes either in isolation or bound to diverse binding partners. NMR data can be employed to set up structure-based approaches to design efficient antiviral agents inhibiting crucial steps of viral life cycle. In addition, NMR-based metabolomics analyses of biofluids from virus-infected patients let identify metabolites biomarkers of the disease and follow changes in metabolic profiles associated with antiviral therapy thus paving the way for novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Conclusion: Considering the NMR-based work conducted on different viruses, we believe that in the near future, much more NMR efforts will be devoted to discovering novel anti SARS-CoV-2 agents.