Potential compounds from several Indonesian plants to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection: A mini-review of SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic targets

The outbreak of coronaviruses (CoVs) presents an enormous threat to humans. To date, no new therapeutic drugs or vaccines licensed to treat human coronaviruses remain undiscovered. This mini-review briefly reports the number of potential plants widely distributed in Indonesia for further research and development as anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents and the critical targets for SARS-CoV-2 therapy, such as angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2) receptor, spike protein, 3-chymotrypsin-like protease (3CL(pro)), papain-like protease (PLpro), RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), helicase, and serine protease. Indonesia is rich in medicinal plants (herbal); it also has a long history of using plants to treat various hereditary diseases. However, since SARS-CoV-2 is a new disease, it has no history of plant-based treatment anywhere in the world. This mini-review describes natural products from several Indonesian plants that contain compounds that could potentially prevent or reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection, act as potential targeted therapy, and provide new therapeutic strategies to develop SARS-CoV-2 countermeasures.