First principle simulation of coated hydroxychloroquine on Ag, Au and Pt nanoparticles

From the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic, the potential antiviral properties of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and chloroquine (CQ) against SARS-CoV-2 suggested that these drugs could be the appropriate therapeutic candidates. However, their side effects directed clinical tests towards optimizing safe utilization strategies. The noble metal nanoparticles (NP) are promising materials with antiviral and antibacterial properties that can deliver the drug to the target agent, thereby reducing the side effects. In this work, we applied both the quantum mechanical and classical atomistic molecular dynamics approaches to demonstrate the adsorption properties of HCQ/CQ on Ag, Au, AgAu, and Pt nanoparticles. We found the adsorption energies of HCQ/CQ towards nanoparticles have the following trend: PtNP>AuNP>AuAgNP>AgNP. This shows that PtNP has the highest affinity in comparison to the other types of nanoparticles. The (non)perturbative effects of this drug on the plasmonic absorption spectra of AgNP and AuNP with the time-dependent density functional theory. The effect of size and composition of NPs on the coating with HCQ and CQ were obtained to propose the appropriate candidate for drug delivery. This kind of modeling could help experimental groups to find efficient and safe therapies.