Network Pharmacology Approach to Identify the Calotropis Phytoconstituents' Potential Epileptic Targets and Evaluation of Molecular Docking, MD Simulation, and MM-PBSA Performance.

Epilepsy originates from unusual electrical rhythm within brain cells, causes seizures. Calotropis species have been utilized to treat a wide spectrum of ailments since antiquity. Despite chemical and biological investigations, there have been minimal studies on their anticonvulsant activity, and the molecular targets of this plant constituents are unexplored. This study aimed to investigate the plausible epileptic targets of Calotropis phytoconstituents through network pharmacology, and to evaluate their binding strength and stability with the identified targets. In detail, 125 phytoconstituents of the Calotropis plant (C. procera and C. gigantea) were assessed for their drug-likeness (DL), blood-brain-barrier (BBB) permeability and oral bioavailability (OB). Network analysis revealed that targets PTGS2 and PPAR-γ were ranked first and fourth, respectively, among the top ten hub genes significantly linked with antiepileptic drug targets. Additionally, docking, molecular dynamic (MD) simulation, and Molecular Mechanics-Poisson-Boltzmann Surface Area (MM-PBSA) were employed to validate the compound-gene interactions. Docking studies suggested ergost-5-en-3-ol, stigmasterol and ß-sitosterol exhibit stronger binding affinity and favorable interactions than co-crystallized ligands with both the targets. Furthermore, both MD simulations and MM-PBSA calculations substantiated the docking results. Combined data revealed that Calotropis phytoconstituents ergost-5-en-3-ol, stigmasterol, and ß-sitosterol might be the best inhibitors of both PTGS2 and PPAR-γ.

In silico investigation of potential phytoconstituents against ligand- and voltage-gated ion channels as antiepileptic agents.

The most promising anticonvulsant phytocompounds were explored in this work using docking, molecular dynamic (MD) simulation, and Molecular Mechanics-Poisson-Boltzmann Surface Area (MM-PBSA) approaches. A total of 70 phytochemicals were screened against α-amino-3-hydroxyl-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA), N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA), voltage-gated sodium ion channels (VGSC), and carbonic anhydrase enzyme II (CA II) receptors, and the docking results were compared to the reference drug phenytoin. Amentoflavone displayed the highest affinity for AMPA and VGSC receptors, with docking scores of - 10.4 and - 10.1 kcal/mol, respectively. Oliganthin H-NMDA and epigallocatechin-3-gallate-CA II complexes showed docking scores of - 10.9 and - 6.9 kcal/mol, respectively. All four complexes depicted a high dock score compared to the phenytoin complex at the binding site of the corresponding proteins. The MD simulation investigated the stabilities and favorable conformation of apoproteins and ligand/reference-bound complexes. The results revealed that proteins AMPA, VGSC, and CA II were more efficiently stabilized by lead phytochemicals than phenytoin binding. Additionally, principal component analysis and MM-PBSA results suggested that these lead phytocompounds have good compactness and strong binding free energy. Further, physicochemical and pharmacokinetic studies revealed that these final lead phytochemicals would be suitable for oral intake, have sufficient intestinal permeability, and have the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Comprehensively, this study predicted amentoflavone as the best lead phytochemical out of the 70 anticonvulsant phytocompounds that can be used to treat epilepsy. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-024-03948-1.

Identification of novel C-15 fluoro isosteviol derivatives for GABA-AT inhibition by in silico investigations.

CONTEXT: The treatment of epilepsy is associated with the inhibition of γ-aminobutyric acid-aminotransferase (GABA-AT), which suppresses the concentration of a key neurotransmitter GABA. Isosteviol, a natural bioactive molecule, has been reported to possess an anticonvulsant property. In this work, we first reported a series of C-15 fluoro isosteviol analogs which are bearing different functional groups at C-16 to investigate the interactions with GABA-AT by applying molecular docking and molecular dynamic simulation approach. The results revealed that all fluoro isosteviol analogs displayed a greater binding affinity than references vigabatrin, an FDA-approved GABA-AT inactivator, and CPP-115, which has Orphan Drug Designation status, and positioned at the same binding site as references. Furthermore, molecular dynamic (MD) simulation studies on minimum (A1), maximum (E1) binding energy score of fluoro isosteviol analogs, and isosteviol (G1) revealed their stable complex formation in terms of RMSD, RMSF, RG, and hydrogen bond formation. All analogs were found to have drug-like nature, non-toxic, >80% absorption, and the majority tend to penetrate brain-blood-barrier (BBB). The investigations found in this study can help in the development of isosteviol derivatives as drugs for the treatment of epilepsy. METHODS: The two-dimensional (2D) ligand structures were drawn using ChembioDraw Ultra 14.0. Molecular docking with Autodock4 and molecular dynamic simulation with GROMACS version 2020.1 were performed. The CHARMM27 all-atom force field was applied for writing the topology. Biovia Discovery Studio DS2021 was used for viewing and analyzing the protein-ligand complexes. The data generated from molecular dynamic simulation trajectories were plotted using the Origin® 8 software. The Open Babel software was utilized for extracting SMILEs files of all the fluoro isosteviol analogs. The drug-likeness and ADMET of the molecules were evaluated by SwissADME and ADMETlab 2.0 web tools.