Pharmacokinetic and molecular docking studies to design antimalarial compounds targeting Actin I

Malaria is an ancient disease that still causes more than 200 million of cases 7 with high mortality globally. Identification of new drug targets and development of novel antimalarial drugs with unique mode of action encounter the drug resistance and reduce the mortality by Plasmodium parasites. Actin protein is one of the key proteins in Plasmodium falciparum playing multifarious important roles including transport, cell motility, cell division, and shape determination. This study investigated Actin I as a drug target, in silico screening of diverse molecules through molecular docking was considered. Further, pharmacokinetic parameters of the selected molecules from the docking and interaction studies were planned to propose the lead molecules.b.

Molecules were selected according to score and protein ligand interaction and selected molecules were subjected for pharmacokinetic studies to investigate important drug parameters.

The docked molecules were ranked according to the binding score and good interaction pattern was observed with Actin I within top 20 scoring molecules. The selected molecules also had optimum pharmacokinetic parameters.

The current study provides a set of hit molecules which can be further explored through in vitro and in vivo experiments for the development of potential drugs against malaria, there by encountering drug resistance and establishing Actin I as an important drug target.