Research studies on human tyrosinase inhibitors and exploration for better cytotoxic agents remain an important line in drug discovery and development at the present time. Recently, multiple inhibitors are being used to cure melanogenesis by targeting human tyrosinase. A series of coumarin (C1-C9)-, thymol (T1-T8)- and vanillin (V1-V8)-based derivatives have been theoretically analyzed for their inhibitory effects against human tyrosinase. The crystal structure of human tyrosinase is not available in Protein Data Bank. Therefore, homology modeling approach was used to predict three-dimensional (3D) crystal structure of human tyrosinase. The reliability and efficacy of predicted 3D structure were validated by using Ramachandran plots which indicate that 95.01 % residues are present in favored regions. Moreover, multiple computational approaches such as molecular docking and molecular dynamic (MD) simulation along with various online tools were employed to screen the best inhibitor against melanogenesis. The results revealed that V7 and C9 compounds showed significant binding energy values (-7.79 and -7.40 kcal/mol, respectively) compared with the standard drugs such as kojic acid (-4.21 kcal/mol) and arbutin (-4.62 kcal/mol). Moreover, MD simulation results also justified that V7 showed little fluctuations throughout the simulation period as depicted by the root mean square deviation and root mean square fluctuation graphs. Thus, the present in silico study provides a deeper insight into the structural attributes of V7 compound and its overall molecular interactions against human tyrosinase and gives a hypothetical gateway to use this compound as a potential inhibitor against melanogenesis.

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The present work describes the synthesis of few hydroxylated amide derivatives as melanogenesis inhibitors. In vitro, in vivo and computational studies proved that compound 6d is a highly potent melanogenesis inhibitor compared to standard kojic acid. The title amides 4a–e and 6a–e were synthesized following simple reaction routes with excellent yields. Most of the synthesized compounds exhibited good mushroom tyrosinase inhibitory activity, but compound 6d showed excellent activity (IC50 0.15 µM) compared to standard kojic acid (IC50 16.69 µM). Lineweaver–Burk plots were used for the determination of kinetic mechanism, and it was found that compounds 4c and 6d showed non-competitive inhibition while 6a and 6b showed mixed-type inhibition. The kinetic mechanism further revealed that compound 6d formed irreversible complex with the target enzyme tyrosinase. The Ki values determined for compounds 4c, 6a, 6b and 6d are 0.188, 0.84, 2.20 and 0.217 µM respectively. Results of human tyrosinase inhibitory activity in A375 human melanoma cells showed that compound 6d exhibited 91.9% inhibi-tory activity at a concentration of 50 µg/mL. In vivo cytotoxicity evaluation of compound 6d in zebrafish embryos showed that it is non-toxic to zebrafish. Melanin depigmentation assay performed in zebrafish indicated that compound 6d possessed greater potential in decreasing melanin contents compared to kojic acid at the same concentration. Computational studies also supported the wet lab findings as compound 6d showed a highest binding affinity with the target protein (PDBID: 2Y9X) with a binding energy value of −7.90 kcal/mol. Molecular dynamic simulation studies also proved that amide 6d formed the most stable complex with tyrosinase. Based upon our in vitro, in vivo and computational studies, we propose that compound 6d is a promising candidate for the development of safe cosmetic agent.

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