Association of Beta 2 adrenergic receptor (Thr164Ile) polymorphism with Salbutamol refractoriness in severe asthmatics from Indian population.

BACKGROUND: Thr164Ile polymorphism in the ADRB2 gene encoding ß2 adrenergic receptor (ß2AR) has its functional consequence in declining ligand-receptor interactions and depressed coupling of ß2AR to adenylcyclase. In the present study, we sought to evaluate the possible association of Thr164Ile polymorphism with asthma susceptibility, pharmacogenetic response to Salbutamol and varying degrees of severity. METHODS: Three hundred and ninety eight clinically diagnosed patients and four hundred and fifty six healthy controls were enrolled in the study. Patients were classified into severity classes according to the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines. To assess bronchodilator response, spirometry was performed before and 15min after Salbutamol (200µg) delivery. Responders to Salbutamol were categorized if percentage reversibility was greater than or equal to 12% in them, while those showing reversibility <12% were classified as non-responders. Further, responding phenotypes were stratified into severity groups. Genotyping was carried out by ARMS-PCR technique. Statistical methods were applied to test the significance of the results. RESULTS: In the present study, polymorphism was not associated with disease susceptibility however; there was significant association with non-responding asthmatics. In case of severity subsets, the polymorphism was not associated with milder subtypes; although, notable association was observed with moderate and severe asthma subtypes. In addition, the polymorphism was significantly associated with non-responding patients with severe asthma. CONCLUSIONS: In south Indian population, the ADRB2 Thr164Ile polymorphism may not form susceptible variant to develop asthma, however, it can form a predictive maker for bronchodilator (Salbutamol) response in severe asthmatics.

Molecular Docking studies of FKBP12-mTOR inhibitors using binding predictions.

UNLABELLED: Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a key regulator of cell growth, proliferation and angiogenesis. mTOR signaling is frequently hyper activated in a broad spectrum of human cancers thereby making it a potential drug target. The current drugs available have been successful in inhibiting the mTOR signaling, nevertheless, show low oral bioavailability and suboptimal solubility. Considering the narrow therapeutic window of the available inhibitors, through computational approaches, the present study pursues to identify a compound with optimal oral bioavailability and better solubility properties in addition ensuing high affinity between FKBP12 and FRB domain of mTOR. Current mTOR inhibitors; Everolimus, Temsirolimus Deforolimus and Echinomycin served as parent molecules for similarity search with a threshold of 95%. The query molecules and respective similar molecules were docked at the binding cleft of FKBP12 protein. Aided by MolDock algorithm, high affinity compounds against FKBP12 were retrieved. Patch Dock supervised protein-protein interactions were established between FRB domain of mTOR and ligand (query and similar) bound and free states of FKBP12. All the similar compounds thus retrieved showed better solubility properties and enabled better complex formation of mTOR and FKBP12. In particular Everolimus similar compound PubChem ID: 57284959 showed appreciable drugs like properties bestowed with better solubility higher oral bioavailability. In addition this compound brought about enhanced interaction between FKBP12 and FRB domain of mTOR. In the study, we report Everolimus similar compound PubChem ID: 57284959 to be potential inhibitor for mTOR pathway which can overcome the affinity and solubility concerns of current mTOR drugs. ABBREVIATIONS: mTOR - Mammalian Target of Rapamycin, FRB domain - FKBP12-rapamycin associated protein, FKBP12 - FK506-binding protein 12, OPLS - Optimized Potentials for Liquid Simulations, Akt - RAC-alpha serine/threonine-protein kinase, PI3K - phosphatidylinositide 3-kinases.