Evaluation of Rapanone and Nectandrin B as novel inhibitors for targeting the metastatic regulator protein BACH1 using breast cancer cell line Mcf-7.

Cancer formation is defined as the unrestrained proliferation of cells due to various factors acting as a causing agent. A limited number of over-expressed transcription factors are contributed to the development of numerous types of cancer. The metastatic regulator protein BTB And CNC Homology 1 (BACH1) is Cap 'N' Collar (CNC) and it belongs to a basic region leucine zipper (bZIP) family. The presence of the least level concentration of intracellular heme BACH1 forms heterodimers with musculo aponeurotic fibrosarcoma (sMAF) proteins and inhibits or induces the target gene expression. Based on the previous studies, BACH1 plays a critical player in the conditions of senescence and oxidative stress, cycling of cell life, heme degradation pathway and cancer, especially in metastasis. Discovering new anti-cancer drugs (identification of bioactive compounds) stages finally needs to inhibit the target protein. This present study is aimed to screen and identify stability, binding affinity and analysis of pharmacokinetics of selected compounds through structural screening, ADMET, DFT and MESP. From this study, it is revealed that Rapanone and Nectandrin B have the potential to alter the degree of gene expression via binding with the BACH1 allosteric region which will further change the degree of expression of BACH1 downstream target genes involved in the regulation of cancer progression particularly in metastasis. The two plant origin compounds Rapanone and Nectandrin B might be novel candidates for developing anti-cancer drugs. The predicted compounds were further validated through in-vitro experimental approaches.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

In silico Screening of Natural Phytocompounds Towards Identification of Potential Lead Compounds to Treat COVID-19.

COVID-19 is one of the members of the coronavirus family that can easily assail humans. As of now, 10 million people are infected and above two million people have died from COVID-19 globally. Over the past year, several researchers have made essential advances in discovering potential drugs. Up to now, no efficient drugs are available on the market. The present study aims to identify the potent phytocompounds from different medicinal plants (Zingiber officinale, Cuminum cyminum, Piper nigrum, Curcuma longa, and Allium sativum). In total, 227 phytocompounds were identified and screened against the proteins S-ACE2 and M pro through structure-based virtual screening approaches. Based on the binding affinity score, 30 active phytocompounds were selected. Amongst, the binding affinity for beta-sitosterol and beta-elemene against S-ACE2 showed -12.0 and -10.9 kcal/mol, respectively. Meanwhile, the binding affinity for beta-sitosterol and beta-chlorogenin against M pro was found to be -9.7 and -8.4 kcal/mol, respectively. Further, the selected compounds proceeded with molecular dynamics simulation, prime MM-GBSA analysis, and ADME/T property checks to understand the stability, interaction, conformational changes, binding free energy, and pharmaceutical relevant parameters. Moreover, the hotspot residues such as Lys31 and Lys353 for S-ACE2 and catalytic dyad His41 and Cys145 for M pro were actively involved in the inhibition of viral entry. From the in silico analyses, we anticipate that this work could be valuable to ongoing novel drug discovery with potential treatment for COVID-19.

Screening of inhibitors as potential remedial against Ebolavirus infection: pharmacophore-based approach.

Ebola virus disease (EVD) has been recognized as a major threat for humans and primates. Till now, therapeutic solution is a challenging for the treatment of Ebola virus disease. Therefore, new, novel with suitable effective antiviral drug against EVD is essential. In the present study pharmacophore modeling, 3DQSAR, molecular docking, DFT and molecular dynamic simulations were used to identify the new, novel with suitable effective potential inhibitors against Ebola virus through the computational methods. From the pharmacophore PHASE modeling, the best five hypothesis pharmacophore features such as three hydrogen bond acceptor, one positive ion and one aromatic ring are taken to study the 3D-QSAR structural model. The designed with correlation co-efficient is found to be R2 = 0.92 and the excellent predictive power with correlation co- efficient is found to be Q2 = 0.82. The 3D-QSAR model is used to study the virtual screening against the chemical libraries compounds (NCI, ZINC, Asinex, LifeChemical, ChemBridge, MayBridge, Enamine and specs) to identify the novel scaffolds. The best binding free energy (39.368769 kcal/mol) and the best docking score (12.419 kcal/mol) for NCI database are obtained from molecular docking and MM-GBSA respectively. The good electronic features of ligands are observed from DFT analysis. Finally, molecular dynamics simulations revealed the stability of ligand protein complexes ranging from 1 nm to 1.5 nm. We anticipated that, this ligand protein complex could be supportive to improve the potent inhibitor against the Ebola viral treatment. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.