In Silico Screening of Antibacterial Compounds from Herbal Sources Against Vibrio cholerae

The prolonged use of antibiotic viz., tetracycline, quinolones, ampicillin, etc., to reduce the infection of cholera, may failed due to the emergence of new Vibrio cholerae antibiotics resistant strains. Moreover, these antibiotics even restricted for patient suffering from severe dehydration. Hence, there is a call to find an alternative therapeutics against V. cholerae. The natures serve different herbs in its lap which might contain several natural therapeutic compounds almost all diseases. Computer-aided designing is the initial steps for screening the novel inhibitors.

To identify and evaluate natural compounds with low side effects with high efficacy against V. cholerae has been done.

In silico screening, absorption, digestion, metabolism, and excretion (ADME), and docking of herbal compounds have been performed on to the target ToxT (transcriptional activator of V. cholerae). The compound with good ADME properties and drug-likeness property were subjected to docking.

From 70 herbal compounds, some compounds such as aloin, campesterol, lupeol, and ursolic acid showed a violation of the rule of five and compounds such as lupeol and beta carotene showed negative binding energy. Luteolin, catechin, brevifolin, etc., compounds were selected based on ADME, drug-likeness property, and docking studies.

Two compounds named catechin and luteolin showed better inhibition properties against ToxT and good ADME and drug-likeness property were selected as a better lead molecule for drug development in future. The Genetic Optimization for Ligand Docking fitness score for catechin is 48.74 kcal/mol and luteolin 38.12 kcal/mol.

Vibrio cholerae became antibiotic resistance and associated with several cholera epidemic and pandemic. Hence, there is a need to find an alternative therapeutics against V. cholerae. Many herbal compounds present in nature having high medicinal value. From in-silico study, found two compound Luteolin from Tulsi and Catechin from Green Tea which showed good binding energy and druggish property. Abbreviations used: V. cholerae: Vibrio cholera, ADME: Absorption, digestion, metabolism and excretion, CT: Cholera toxin, TCP: Toxin co-regulated Pilus, GOLD: Genetic Optimization for Ligand Docking, Asp: Aspartic acid, Arg: Arginine, Lys: Lysine, Thr: Threonine, Tyr: Tyrosine, KEGG: Kyoto encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes.