IN SILICO SCREENING FOR IDENTIFICATION OF NOVEL NON-PEPTIDIC FALCIPAIN 3 INHIBITORS BY VIRTUAL SCREENING, MOLECULAR DOCKING, AND MD SIMULATION

Authors

  • TRISHA RAJGURU Department of Zoology, The Assam Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam, India.
  • GOURI GOUTAM BORTHAKUR Department of Physics, Jorhat Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat, Assam, India.
  • PUNDARIKAKSHA DAS Department of Forensic Science, The Assam Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam, India.
  • MOUSUMI DAS GOSWAMI Department of Biotechnology, The Assam Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam, India.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22159/ajpcr.2025v18i3.53779

Keywords:

Falcipain 3, Docking, MD Simulation,, Virtual Screening, Antimalarial, Plasmodium

Abstract

Objective: The development of two new non-peptidic inhibitors against Falcipain 3 using computer-aided design.

Methods: The researchers started by narrowing down a virtual library of compounds from the PubChem database to 800 drug-like compounds, which were then virtually screened and docked to identify the two most promising inhibitors. The screened compounds were then further studied using Molecular Dynamics Simulation.

Results: The screened compounds were found to have potent antimalarial activity in silico.

Conclusion: The proposed two lead compounds would serve as excellent targets for antimalarial drug. The efficacy of these potent inhibitors could be validated with laboratory experiments, with the goal of eventually developing an anti-malarial drug.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Musyoka TM, Njuguna JN, Tastan Bishop Ö. Comparing sequence and structure of falcipains and human homologs at prodomain and catalytic active site for malarial peptide based inhibitor design. Malar J. 2019;18(1):159. doi: 10.1186/s12936-019-2790-2, PMID 31053072

Musyoka TM, Kanzi AM, Lobb KA, Tastan Bishop Ö. Analysis of non-peptidic compounds as potential malarial inhibitors against plasmodial cysteine proteases via integrated virtual screening workflow. J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2016;34(10):2084-101. doi: 10.1080/07391102.2015.1108231, PMID 26471975

Ettari R, Bova F, Zappala M, Grasso S, Micale N, Zappalà M. Falcipain-2 inhibitors. Med Res Rev. 2010;30(1):136-67. doi: 10.1002/ med.20163, PMID 19526594

Makam P, Thakur PK, Kannan T. In vitro and in silico antimalarial activity of 2-(2-hydrazinyl)thiazole derivatives. Eur J Pharm Sci. 2014;52:138-45. doi: 10.1016/j.ejps.2013.11.001, PMID 24231338

Sachs J, Malaney P. The economic and social burden of malaria. Nature. 2002;415(6872):680-5. doi: 10.1038/415680a, PMID 11832956

Vennerstrom, et al. Peroxidic antimalarial. Expert Opin Ther Pat. 2005;11:1753-60.

Leung-Toung R, Zhao Y, Li W, Tam TF, Karimian K, Spino M. Thiol proteases: Inhibitors and potential therapeutic targets. Curr Med Chem. 2006;13(5):547-81. doi: 10.2174/092986706776055733, PMID 16515521

Rosenthal PJ, Sijwali PS, Singh A, Shenai BR. Cysteine proteases of malaria parasites: Targets for chemotherapy. Curr Pharm Des. 2002;8(18):1659-72. doi: 10.2174/1381612023394197, PMID 12132997

Chakka SK, Kalamuddin M, Sundararaman S, Wei L, Mundra S, Mahesh R, et al. Identification of novel class of falcipain-2 inhibitors as potential antimalarial agents. Bioorg Med Chem. 2015;23(9):2221- 40. doi: 10.1016/j.bmc.2015.02.062, PMID 25840796

Rajguru T, Bora DD, Modi MK. Identification of promising inhibitors for Plasmodium haemoglobinase Falcipain-2, using virtual screening, molecular docking, and MD Simulation. J Mol Struct. 2022;1248:131427. doi: 10.1016/j.molstruc.2021.131427

Kraft C, Siems KJ, Siems K, Solis PN, Gupta MP. Andinermal A-C, antiplasmodial constituents from Andira inermis. Phytochemistry. 2001;58:769-74.

Bakr F, Wahab A, Khidre RE. Chloroquinoline-3-carbaldehyde II: Synthesis, reactions, and applications. J Chem. 2013;13:851297. doi: 10.1155/2013/851297

Ibrahim AM, Tarek MY, Emad M, Khidre ER. New potential antimalarial agents: Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of some novel quinoline derivatives as antimalarial agents. Molecules. 2016;21:909.

Rajguru T, Bora DD, Modi MK. Combined CADD and Virtual screening to identify novel non-peptidic falcipain-2 inhibitors. Curr Comput Aid Drug Des. 2021;16:579-88. doi: 10.2174/157340991666 6200701213526

Harsha Vardhan P, Reddy VV, Mourya Reddy CH, Rathi Suganya P. Identification of potent lead molecules for Furin receptor through HTVS and molecular docking. Int J Pharm Clin Res. 2016;8(12):1548-51. 16. Suri S, Chowhan B. Natural fungal compounds as 5-hydroxytryptamine Receptor 2C inhibitors: A homology modeling and docking study. Int J Pharm Clin Res. 2018;10(4):84-9.

Pronk S, Páll S, Schulz R, Larsson P, Bjelkmar P, Apostolov R, et al. GROMACS 4.5: A high-throughput and highly parallel open source molecular simulation toolkit. Bioinformatics. 2013;29(7):845-54. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btt055, PMID 23407358

Schüttelkopf AW, Van Aalten DM. PRODRG: A tool for high-throughput crystallography of protein-ligand complexes. Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr. 2004;60(8):1355-63. doi: 10.1107/S0907444904011679, PMID 15272157

Ettari R, Nizi E, Di Francesco ME, Micale N, Grasso S, Zappalà M, et al. Nonpeptidic vinyl and alyl phosphonates as falcipain-2 inhibitors. ChemMedChem. 2008;3(7):1030-3. doi: 10.1002/cmdc.200800050, PMID 18428116

Berendsen HJ, Grigera JR, Straatsma TP. The missing term in effective pair potentials. J Phys Chem. 1987;91(24):6269-71. doi: 10.1021/ j100308a038

Marques AF, Esser D, Rosenthal PJ, Kassack MU, Lima LM. Falcipain-2 inhibition by suramin and suramin analogues. Bioorg Med Chem. 2013;21(13):3667-73. doi: 10.1016/j.bmc.2013.04.047, PMID 23680445

Rajguru T, Bora DS, Modi MK. Molecular dynamics simulation of P. falciparum haemoglobinase falcipain 2, in its apo and holo structural state. Curr Trends Pharm Res. 2018;5(1):24-33.

World Malarial Report. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2024. Available from: [Last accessed on May 01].

Rosenthal PJ, Sijwali PS, Singh A, Shenai BR. Cysteine proteases of malaria parasites: Targets for chemotherapy. Curr Pharm Des. 2002;8(18):1659-72. doi: 10.2174/1381612023394197, PMID 12132997

Rudrapal M, Chetia D, Singh V. Novel series of 1, 2, 4-trioxane derivatives as antimalarial agents. J Enzyme Inhib Med Chem. 2017;32(1):1159-73. doi: 10.1080/14756366.2017.1363742, PMID 28870093

Rudrapal M, Sharma D, Chetia D. Design, synthesis and antimalarial activity of Some new 2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone-4-hydroxyaniline hybrid mannich bases. Asian J Chem. 2016;23:782-8.

Hess B, Bekker H, Berendsen HJ, Fraaije JG. Lincs: A linear constraint solver for molecular simulations. J Comput Chem. 1997;18(12):1463- 72. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-987X(199709)18:12<1463:AID-JCC4>3.0.CO;2-H

Published

06-03-2025

How to Cite

TRISHA RAJGURU, et al. “IN SILICO SCREENING FOR IDENTIFICATION OF NOVEL NON-PEPTIDIC FALCIPAIN 3 INHIBITORS BY VIRTUAL SCREENING, MOLECULAR DOCKING, AND MD SIMULATION”. Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research, vol. 18, no. 3, Mar. 2025, pp. 87-92, doi:10.22159/ajpcr.2025v18i3.53779.

Issue

Section

Original Article(s)