Screening of potential antiplasmodial agents targeting cysteine protease-Falcipain 2: a computational pipeline

The spread of antimalarial drug resistance is a substantial challenge in achieving global malaria elimination. Consequently, the identification of novel therapeutic candidates is a global health priority. Malaria parasite necessitates hemoglobin degradation for its survival, which is mediated by Falcipain 2 (FP2), a promising antimalarial target. In particular, FP2 is a key enzyme in the erythrocytic stage of the parasite's life cycle. Here, we report the screening of approved drugs listed in DrugBank using a computational pipeline that includes drug-likeness, toxicity assessments, oral toxicity evaluation, oral bioavailability, docking analysis, maximum common substructure (MCS) and molecular dynamics (MD) Simulations analysis to identify capable FP2 inhibitors, which are hence potential antiplasmodial agents. A total of 45 drugs were identified, which have positive drug-likeness, no toxic features and good bioavailability. Among these, six drugs showed good binding affinity towards FP2 compared to E64, an epoxide known to inhibit FP2. Notably, two of them, Cefalotin and Cefoxitin, shared the highest MCS with E64, which suggests that they possess similar biological activity as E64. In an investigation using MD for 100 ns, Cefalotin and Cefoxitin showed adequate protein compactness as well as satisfactory complex stability. Overall, these computational approach findings can be applied for designing and developing specific inhibitors or new antimalarial agents for the treatment of malaria infections.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.