South African Abietane Diterpenoids and Their Analogs as Potential Antimalarials: Novel Insights from Hybrid Computational Approaches
Research Unit in Bioinformatics (RUBi), Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
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Molecules 2019, 24(22), 4036; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24224036
Received: 25 September 2019 / Revised: 28 October 2019 / Accepted: 31 October 2019 / Published: 7 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Section Medicinal Chemistry)
The hemoglobin degradation process in Plasmodium parasites is vital for nutrient acquisition required for their growth and proliferation. In P. falciparum, falcipains (FP-2 and FP-3) are the major hemoglobinases, and remain attractive antimalarial drug targets. Other Plasmodium species also possess highly homologous proteins to FP-2 and FP-3. Although several inhibitors have been designed against these proteins, none has been commercialized due to associated toxicity on human cathepsins (Cat-K, Cat-L and Cat-S). Despite the two enzyme groups sharing a common structural fold and catalytic mechanism, distinct active site variations have been identified, and can be exploited for drug development. Here, we utilize in silico approaches to screen 628 compounds from the South African natural sources to identify potential hits that can selectively inhibit the plasmodial proteases. Using docking studies, seven abietane diterpenoids, binding strongly to the plasmodial proteases, and three additional analogs from PubChem were identified. Important residues involved in ligand stabilization were identified for all potential hits through binding pose analysis and their energetic contribution determined by binding free energy calculations. The identified compounds present important scaffolds that could be further developed as plasmodial protease inhibitors. Previous laboratory assays showed the effect of the seven diterpenoids as antimalarials. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate that their possible mechanism of action could be by interacting with falcipains and their plasmodial homologs. Dynamic residue network (DRN) analysis on the plasmodial proteases identified functionally important residues, including a region with high betweenness centrality, which had previously been proposed as a potential allosteric site in FP-2.
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Keywords:
falcipains; docking; molecular dynamics simulation; dynamic residue interaction network; binding free energy
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MDPI and ACS Style
Musyoka, T.; Bishop, Ö.T. South African Abietane Diterpenoids and Their Analogs as Potential Antimalarials: Novel Insights from Hybrid Computational Approaches. Molecules 2019, 24, 4036. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24224036
AMA Style
Musyoka T, Bishop ÖT. South African Abietane Diterpenoids and Their Analogs as Potential Antimalarials: Novel Insights from Hybrid Computational Approaches. Molecules. 2019; 24(22):4036. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24224036
Chicago/Turabian StyleMusyoka, Thommas; Bishop, Özlem T. 2019. "South African Abietane Diterpenoids and Their Analogs as Potential Antimalarials: Novel Insights from Hybrid Computational Approaches" Molecules 24, no. 22: 4036. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24224036
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