TGR5, act as a potential pharmacological target in the treatment of type II diabetes. In the computational study, structural modeling and binding site prediction of TGR5 receptor was performed. Two well-known agonists of TGR5 used to investigate the mode and mechanism of binding.

Farnesoid X receptor and Takeda G-protein-coupled receptor-5 are well known bile acid receptors and act as promising targets for the drug development and treatment of diabetes. Agonists of both the bile acid receptors increase insulin sensitivity and control glucose, lipids and bile acid homeostasis. The current study deals with the identification of novel dual agonists using ligand and structure-based virtual screening. Initially, an experimentally proven well-known dual agonist of FXR and TGR5, namely INT-767, was docked into the binding sites of FXR and TGR5 to determine the protein residues important for ligand binding. The docked complexes FXRINT-767 and TGR5INT-767 were used to generate e-pharmacophore hypotheses. Ligand-based virtual screening was carried out using the hypothetical e-pharmacophore model against the ChemBridge database. Further, structure-based virtual screening was performed with screened hits to find potential agonists of FXR and TGR5. A total of four best agonists were identified based on their affinity and mode of interactions with the receptors. The binding mode of these compounds with both receptors was analyzed in detail. Furthermore, molecular dynamics, ADME toxicity prediction, density functional theory and binding free energy calculations were carried out to rank the compounds. Based on the above analyses, the most potent compound, ChemBridge_9149693, was selected for further in vitro studies. The results of in vitro assays suggested that ChemBridge_9149693 is a potent and promising drug for the treatment of type II diabetes. Thus, the compound could be used for further drug design and development of dual agonists of FXR and TGR5.

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: The cytochrome bc1-aa3 supercomplex plays an essential role in the cellular respiratory system of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. It transfers electrons from menaquinol to cytochrome aa3 (Complex IV) via cytochrome bc1 (Complex III), which reduces the oxygen. The electron transfer from a variety of donors into oxygen through the respiratory electron transport chain is essential to pump protons across the membrane creating an electrochemical transmembrane gradient (proton motive force, PMF) that regulates the synthesis of ATP via the oxidative phosphorylation process. Cytochrome bc1-aa3 supercomplex in M. tuberculosis is, therefore, a major drug target for antibiotic action. In recent years, several respiratory chain components have been targeted for developing new candidate drugs, illustrating the therapeutic potential of obstructing energy conversion of M. tuberculosis. The recently available cryo-EM structure of mycobacterial cytochrome bc1-aa3 supercomplex with open and closed conformations has opened new avenues for understanding its structure and function for developing more effective, new therapeutics against pulmonary tuberculosis. In this review, we discuss the role and function of several components, subunits, and drug targeting elements of the supercomplex cytochrome bc1-aa3, and its potential inhibitors in detail.

The results led to the conclusion that M. nudicaulis possess hepatoprotective and antioxidant activities against perchloroethylene-induced hepatotoxicity in rats.

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Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) is a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of diabetes mellitus. Atom-based three-dimensional quantitative structure activity relationship (3D-QSAR) models were developed for a series of 48 benzimidazole-based agonists of FXR. A total of five pharmacophore hypotheses were generated based on the survival score to build QSAR models. HHHRR was considered as a best model that consisted of three hydrophobic features (H) and two aromatic rings (R). The best hypothesis, HHHRR yielded a 3D-QSAR model with good statistical value (R(2)) of 0.8974 for a training set of 39 compounds and also showed good predictive power with correlation coefficient (Q(2)) of 0.7559 for a test set of nine compounds. Furthermore, molecular docking simulation was performed to understand the binding affinity of 48 benzimidazole-based compounds against the active site of human FXR protein. Docking results revealed that both the most active and least active compounds showed similar binding mode to the experimentally observed binding mode of co-crystallized ligand. The generated 3D contour maps revealed the structure activity relationship of the compounds. Substitution effects at different positions of benzimidazole derivatives would lead to the discovery of new agonists against human FXR protein.

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