Drug Targets for Rational Design against Emerging Coronaviruses

The recent, fatal outbreak of the novel coronavirus strain in the Middle East highlights the real threat posed by this unique virus family. Neither pharmaceutical cures nor preventive vaccines are clinically available to fight against coronavirus associated syndromes, not to mention a lack of symptom soothing drugs. Development of treatment options is complicated by the unpredictable, recurring instances of cross-species viral transmission. The vastly distributing virus reservoir and the rapid rate of host-species exchange of coronavirus demands wide spectrum potency in an ideal therapeutic. Through summarizing the available information and progress in coronavirus research, this review provides a systematic assessment of the potential wide-spectrum features on the most popular drug targets including viral proteases, spike protein, RNA polymerases and editing enzymes as well as host-virus interaction pathways associated with coronaviruses.