Fawzi Mahomoodally*, Hassan H. Abdallah, Shanoo Suroowan, Sharmeen Jugreet, Yansheng Zhang and Xuebo Hu Pages 4151 - 4162 ( 12 )
Neurodegenerative disorders are estimated to become the second leading cause of death worldwide by 2040. Despite the widespread use of diverse allopathic drugs, these brain-associated disorders can only be partially addressed and long term treatment is often linked with dependency and other unwanted side effects. Nature, believed to be an arsenal of remedies for any illness, presents an interesting avenue for the development of novel neuroprotective agents. Interestingly, inhibition of cholinesterases, involved in the breakdown of acetylcholine in the synaptic cleft, has been proposed to be neuroprotective. This review therefore aims to provide additional insight via docking studies of previously studied compounds that have shown potent activity against acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) in vitro. Indeed, the determination of potent plant-based ligands for this purpose through in silico methods enables the elimination of lengthy and costly traditional methods of drug discovery. Herein, a literature search was conducted to identify active phytochemicals which are cholinesterase inhibitors. Following which in silico docking methods were applied to obtain docking scores. Compound structures were extracted from online ZINC database and optimized using AM1 implemented in gaussian09 software. Noteworthy ligands against AChE highlighted in this study include: 19,20-dihydroervahanine A and 19, 20-dihydrotabernamine. Regarding BChE inhibition, the best ligands were found to be 8-Clavandurylkaempferol, Na-methylepipachysamine D; ebeiedinone; and dictyophlebine. Thus, ligand optimization between such phytochemicals and cholinesterases coupled with in vitro, in vivo studies and randomized clinical trials can lead to the development of novel drugs against neurodegenerative disorders.
Neuroprotective, docking, optimization, drug discovery, in vitro, in vivo.
Institute of Research and Development, Duy Tan University, Da Nang 550000, Chemistry Department, College of Education, Salahaddin University, 44002 Erbil, Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Mauritius, Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Mauritius, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Bio-Energy Crops, School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, College of Plant Sciences and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan