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Title

Molecular Docking Based Screening of Plant Flavonoids as Dengue NS1 Inhibitors

 

Authors

Muhammad Tahir ul Qamar, Arooj Mumtaz, Rabbia Naseem, Amna Ali, Tabeer Fatima, Tehreem Jabbar, Zubair Ahmad & Usman Ali Ashfaq*

 

Affiliation

Department of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, Government College University Faisalabad (GCUF), 38000, Punjab, Pakistan

 

Email

usmancemb@gmail.com; *Corresponding author

 

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received June 27, 2014; Accepted July 01, 2014; Published July 22, 2014

 

Abstract

Dengue infection has turned into a serious health concern globally due to its high morbidity rate and a high possibility of increase in its mortality rate on the account of unavailability of any proper treatment for severe dengue infection. The situation demands an urgent development of efficient and practicable treatment to deal with Dengue virus (DENV). Flavonoids, a class of phytochemicals present in medicinal plants, possess anti-viral activity and can be strong drug candidates against viruses. NS1 glycoprotein of Dengue virus is involved in its RNA replication and can be a strong target for screening of drugs against this virus. Current study focuses on the identification of flavonoids which can block Asn-130 glycosylation site of Dengue virus NS1 to inhibit viral replication as glycosylation of NS1 is required for its biological functioning. Molecular docking approach was used in this study and the results revealed that flavonoids have strong potential interactions with active site of NS1. Six flavonoids (Deoxycalyxin A; 3,5,7,3',4'-pentahydroxyflavonol-3-O-beta-D-galactopyranoside; (3R)-3',8-Dihydroxyvestitol; Sanggenon O; Epigallocatechin gallate; Chamaejasmin) blocked the Asn-130 glycosylation site of NS1 and could be able to inhibit the viral replication. It can be concluded from this study that these flavonoids could serve as antiviral drugs for dengue infections. Further in-vitro analyses are required to confirm their efficacy and to evaluate their drug potency.

 

Keywords

Dengue, NS1, Glycosylation site, Medicinal Plants, Flavoniods, Molecular Docking

 

Citation

Qamar et al. Bioinformation 10(7): 460-465 (2014)
 

Edited by

P Kangueane

 

ISSN

0973-2063

 

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

 

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.