Computational and experimental studies of whey protein derived small peptides with target specific activity against the SARS CoV 2 Main Protease

In the present work , three whey protein-derived peptides (IPAVF(a), IAEK(b), MHI(c)), endowed with ACE inhibitory activity , were examined for their antiviral activity against the SARS-CoV-2 3C-like protease (3CLpro ) and Human Rhinovirus 3C protease (3Cpro) by employing molecular docking. Validation by in vitro experiments confirmed these results. In this scenario, the herein presented small peptides are introduced as promising molecules to be exploited in the development of "target-specific antiviral" agents against SARS-CoV-2.