Antiviral zinc oxide nanoparticles mediated by hesperidin and in silico comparison study between antiviral phenolics as anti-SARS-CoV-2

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which caused the coronavirus (COVID-19), is the virus responsible for over 69,613,607 million infections and over 1,582,966 deaths worldwide. All treatment measures and protocols were considered to be supportive only and not curative. During this current coronavirus pandemic, searching for pharmaceutical or traditional complementary and integrative medicine to assist with prevention, treatment, and recovery has been advantageous. These phytopharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals can be more economic, available, safe and lower side effects. This is in silico comparison study of ten phenolic antiviral agents against SARS-CoV-2, as well as isolation of the most active metabolite from natural sources. Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) were also then prepared using these metabolite as a reducing agent. All tested compounds showed predicted anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity. Hesperidin showed the highest docking score, this leads us to isolate it from the orange peels and we confirmed its structure by conventenional spectroscopic analysis. In addition, synthesis of hesperidin zinc oxide nanoparticles was characterized by UV, IR, XRD and TEM. In vitro antiviral activity of hesperidin and ZnO NPs was evaluated against hepatitis A virus as an example of RNA viruses. However, ZnO NPs and hesperidin showed antiviral activity against HAV but ZnO NPs showed higher activity than hesperidin. Thus, hesperidin and its mediated ZnO nanoparticles are willing antiviral agents and further studies against SARS-CoV-2 are required to be used as a potential treatment.