Recent Trends in Computer-aided Drug Design for Anti-cancer Drug Discovery.

Cancer is considered one of the deadliest diseases globally, and continuous research is being carried out to find novel potential therapies for myriad cancer types that affect the human body. Researchers are hunting for innovative remedies to minimize the toxic effects of conventional therapies being driven by cancer, which is emerging as pivotal causes of mortality worldwide. Cancer progression steers the formation of heterogeneous behavior, including self-sustaining proliferation, malignancy, and evasion of apoptosis, tissue invasion, and metastasis of cells inside the tumor with distinct molecular features. The complexity of cancer therapeutics demands advanced approaches to comprehend the underlying mechanisms and potential therapies. Precision medicine and cancer therapies both rely on drug discovery. In vitro drug screening and in vivo animal trials are the mainstays of traditional approaches for drug development; however, both techniques are laborious and expensive. Omics data explosion in the last decade has made it possible to discover efficient anti-cancer drugs via computational drug discovery approaches. Computational techniques such as computer-aided drug design have become an essential drug discovery tool and a keystone for novel drug development methods. In this review, we seek to provide an overview of computational drug discovery procedures comprising the target sites prediction, drug discovery based on structure and ligand-based design, quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR), molecular docking calculations, and molecular dynamics simulations with a focus on cancer therapeutics. The applications of artificial intelligence, databases, and computational tools in drug discovery procedures, as well as successfully computationally designed drugs, have been discussed to highlight the significance and recent trends in drug discovery against cancer. The current review describes the advanced computer-aided drug design methods that would be helpful in the designing of novel cancer therapies.

Comprehensive in silico analyses of flavonoids elucidating the drug properties against kidney disease by targeting AIM2.

Kidney disorders are among the most common diseases and there is a scarcity of effective treatments for chronic kidney disease. There has been a progressive improvement in specific flavonoids for protective effects against kidney diseases. Flavonoids inhibit the regulatory enzymes to control inflammation-related diseases. In the present study, a hybrid approach of molecular docking analyses and molecular dynamic simulation was followed by principal component analyses and a dynamics cross-correlation matrix. In the present study, the top-ranked five flavonoids were reported, and the maximum binding affinity was observed against AIM2. Molecular docking analyses revealed that Glu_186, Phe_187, Lys_245, Glu_248, Ile_263, and Asn_265 are potent residues against AIM2 for ligand-receptor interactions. Extensive in silico analyses suggested that procyanidin is a potential molecule against AIM2. Moreover, the site-directed mutagenesis for the reported interacting residues of AIM2 could be important for further in vitro analyses. The observed novel results based on extensive computational analyses may be significant for potential drug design against renal disorders by targeting AIM2.

In silico elucidation of potential drug targets against oxygenase domain of Human eNOS Dysfunction.

Nitric Oxide (NO) signaling pathway plays a vital role in various physiological and pathophysiological processes including vasodilation, neurogenesis, inflammation, translation and protein regulation. NO signaling pathway is associated with various diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, vision impairment, hypertension and Alzheimer's disease. Human Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase (eNOS) bound with calcium regulatory protein (calmodulin (CaM)) to produce NO which initiates cGMP pathway. The current study employs to screen the novel compounds against human eNOS independent of calcium regulatory protein (CaM). The current effort emphasized that the deficiency of CaM leads to dysfunction of cGMP signaling pathway. In this work, a hybrid approach of high-throughput virtual screening and comparative molecular docking studies followed by molecular dynamic simulation analyses were applied. The screening of top ranked two novel compounds against eNOS were reported that showed effective binding affinity, retrieved through the DrugBank and ZINC database libraries. Comparative molecular docking analyses revealed that Val-104, Phe-105, Gln-247, Arg-250, Ala-266, Trp-330, Tyr-331, Pro-334, Ala-335, Val-336, Tyr-357, Met-358, Thr-360, Glu-361, Ile-362, Arg-365, Asn-366, Asp-369, Arg-372, Trp-447 and Tyr-475 are potent residues for interactional studies. High-throughput virtual screening approach coupled with molecular dynamic simulation and drug likeness rules depicted that ZINC59677432 and DB00456 are potent compounds to target eNOS. In conclusion, the proposed compounds are potent against eNOS based on extensive in silico analyses. Overall, the findings of this study may be helpful to design therapeutic targets against eNOS.

Pharmacological Progress of Mitophagy Regulation.

With the advancement in novel drug discovery, biologically active compounds are considered pharmacological tools to understand complex biological mechanisms and the identification of potent therapeutic agents. Mitochondria boast a central role in different integral biological processes and mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with multiple pathologies. It is, therefore, prudent to target mitochondrial quality control mechanisms by using pharmacological approaches. However, there is a scarcity of biologically active molecules, which can interact with mitochondria directly. Currently, the chemical compounds used to induce mitophagy include oligomycin and antimycin A for impaired respiration and acute dissipation of mitochondrial membrane potential by using CCCP/FCCP, the mitochondrial uncouplers. These chemical probes alter the homeostasis of the mitochondria and limit our understanding of the energy regulatory mechanisms. Efforts are underway to find molecules that can bring about selective removal of defective mitochondria without compromising normal mitochondrial respiration. In this report, we have tried to summarize and status of the recently reported modulators of mitophagy.