Network analytics for drug repurposing in COVID-19
Nicoleta Siminea, Victor Popescu, José Ángel Sánchez Martín, Daniela Florea, Georgiana‐Luminita Gavril, Ana-Maria Gheorghe, Corina Iţcuş, Krishna Kanhaiya, Octavian Pacioglu, Laura Ioana Popa, Romică Trandafir, Iris Tuşa, Manuela Sidoroff, Mihaela Păun, Eugen Czeizler, Andrei Păun, Ion Petre
Abstract
To better understand the potential of drug repurposing in COVID-19, we analyzed control strategies over essential host factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection. We constructed comprehensive directed protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks integrating the top-ranked host factors, the drug target proteins and directed PPI data. We analyzed the networks to identify drug targets and combinations thereof that offer efficient control over the host factors. We validated our findings against clinical studies data and bioinformatics studies. Our method offers a new insight into the molecular details of the disease and into potentially new therapy targets for it. Our approach for drug repurposing is significant beyond COVID-19 and may be applied also to other diseases.