Dental caries is an oral disease that still shows high prevalence in the world. Streptococcus mutans as the main cariesrelated bacterium uses some features to exhibit its role as a cariogenic bacterium. It majorly can be classified into dependent and independent sucrose proteins. One natural source gaining interest regarding its potential to inhibit S. mutans activity is propolis. However, research has attempted to evaluate the potential inhibitor from propolis to cariesrelated protein S. mutans through an in silico approach. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate the compounds in propolis that have high activity to inhibit glucosyltransferase and antigen I/II using an in silico method. Among 93 compounds from propolis screening, diosmetin, cosmosiin, genistin, and 3′-methoxy-5′-hydroxyisoflavone-7-O-β-D glucoside showed as the best candidate. These potential ligands exhibited high docking stability with the conserved amino acid residue and low dynamics fluctuation. Therefore, this research can provide further insight into dental caries drug development.
The coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak has become a huge challenge in the human sector for the past two years. The coronavirus is capable of mutating at a higher rate than other viruses. Thus, an approach for creating an effective vaccine is still needed to induce antibodies against multiple variants with lower side effects. Currently, there is a lack of research on designing a multiepitope of the COVID-19 spike protein for the Indonesian population with comprehensive immunoinformatic analysis. Therefore, this study aimed to design a multiepitope-based vaccine for the Indonesian population using an immunoinformatic approach. This study was conducted using the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein sequences from Indonesia that were retrieved from the GISAID database. Three SARS-CoV-2 sequences, with IDs of EIJK-61453, UGM0002, and B.1.1.7 were selected. The CD8+ cytotoxic T-cell lymphocyte (CTL) epitope, CD4+ helper T lymphocyte (HTL) epitope, B-cell epitope, and IFN-γ production were predicted. After modeling the vaccines, molecular docking, molecular dynamics, in silico immune simulations, and plasmid vector design were performed. The designed vaccine is antigenic, non-allergenic, non-toxic, capable of inducing IFN-γ with a population reach of 86.29% in Indonesia, and has good stability during molecular dynamics and immune simulation. Hence, this vaccine model is recommended to be investigated for further study.
Objective: Hypertension is the leading contributor to all-cause death and disability worldwide. One of the most well-known first-line antihypertensive drugs is chlorthalidone which treats hypertension through carbonic anhydrase (CA) II inhibition. However, due to the high number of cases of hypertension, a more potent medication is still needed. Xanthone is a potential candidate for the compound group for its potency in inhibiting CA II. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate around 500 xanthones’ potency as a better oral antihypertensive drug than chlorthalidone.
Methods: 507 xanthones were analyzed for their potency using in silico method. Xanthone’s structures were retrieved from the PubChem website or built using Avogadro software, while the CA II receptor was retrieved from The RCSB website. Then molecular docking, ADME evaluation, and toxicity test were evaluated from selected ligands. Finally, a molecular dynamics simulation was conducted to evaluate the stability of the potential ligand as the inhibitor of CA II protein.
Results: This research found that globulixanthone c is considered to be a better CA II inhibitor compared to chlorthalidone. It is due to its lower binding affinity compared to chlorthalidone and its stable binding to CA II’s important inhibition sites with low fluctuation. It also has the potential to be consumed orally because it fulfills all of Lipinski's rule of five standards and its toxicity is on the moderate level.
Conclusion: Globulixanthone c, a type of prenylated xanthones group, showed the best potential activity as the inhibitor of CA II protein to treat hypertension among other xanthones.
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