Background:
Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder where insulin secretion is compromised, leading to hyperglycemia. DPP-4 is a viable and safer target for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Computational tools have proven to be an asset in the process of drug discovery.
Objective:
In the present study, tools like structure-based virtual screening, MM/GBSA, and pharmacokinetic parameters were used to identify natural terpenoids as potential DPP-4 inhibitors for treating diabetes mellitus.
Methods:
Structure-based virtual screening, a cumulative mode of elimination technique, was adopted, identifying the top five potent hit compounds depending on the docking score and non-bonding interactions
Results:
According to the docking data, the most important contributors to complex stability are hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interactions, and Pi–Pi stacking interactions. The dock scores ranged from -6.492 to -5.484 kcal/mol, indicating robust ligand-protein interactions. The pharmacokinetic characteristics of top-scoring hits (CNP0309455, CNP0196061, CNP0122006, CNP0221869, CNP0297378) were also computed in this study, confirming their safe administration in the human body. Also, based on the synthetic accessibility score, all top-scored hits are easily synthesizable. Compound CNP0309455 was quite stable during molecular dynamic simulation studies.
Conclusion:
Virtual database screening yielded new leads for developing DPP-4 inhibitors. As a result, the findings of this study can be used to design and develop natural terpenoids as DPP-4 inhibitors for the medication of diabetes mellitus.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.