ABSTRACT
Phenolic compounds are popular secondary metabolites owing to their biological activities, such as antioxidant, antibacterial, and antiviral. In the current scenario, where bacterial and viral species are causing problems of multidrug resistance and a worldwide pandemic, the diversity of plant polyphenols may provide solutions to tackle the challenges associated with health management. In the last couple of years, the identification and characterization of phenolic compounds for the development of drugs have become major areas of medicinal research due to their versatility and efficacy. Plant phenolic compounds have already been reported as alternatives to traditional medicines for various diseases, including cancer, and many research studies have reported the efficacy of plant phenolic compounds against viral as well as bacterial pathogens. In the present review, we attempted to collect information on the phenolic compounds present in the various plants, extraction methods, and their biological properties, including antiviral and antibacterial properties. Here, we have also reviewed the bioinformatics approaches to studying phenolic compounds. As we know that repurposing phytocompounds using conventional approaches is a time-consuming process, bioinformatics approaches are becoming more attractive, as they save time and money. Bioinformatics approaches can be used to validate the phenolics using drug-based and disease-based strategies, where either drug discovery originates from information linked to drugs or knowledge related to diseases. In this chapter, we propose to review the drug repurposing strategies and provide an overview of the resources and tools commonly used for repurposing studies. Among them, in silico virtual screening is one of the important tools that has proven to be helpful in overcoming the problems and challenges of antiviral and antibacterial drug discovery. Compound structure databases, molecular docking tools, and pharmacophore-based screening may also be useful to reduce the number of phytocompounds to be tested in vitro or in vivo. Here in this chapter, we described the various virtual screening methods that can be used to find new antiviral and antibacterial drugs, with special emphasis on phenolic compounds reported for various biological activities. We will include the current status and future trends in the repurposing of phenolic compounds.
