Lepidium
meyenii
or Maca is widely cultivated
as a health care food supplement due to its nutritional and medicinal
properties. Although there are a few in-depth studies evaluating Maca
antihypertensive effects, the correlations between the chemical constituents
and bioactivity of the plant have not been studied before. Thus, the
roots were extracted using different solvents (aqueous, methanol,
50% methanol, and methylene chloride) and investigated for their antihypertensive
and antioxidant activities through several
in vitro
assays. The methanolic extract exhibited the best renin and angiotensin
converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activities with IC
50
values of 24.79 ± 1.3 ng/mL and 22.02 ± 1.1 ng/mL, respectively,
along with the highest antioxidant activity. In total, 120 metabolites
from different classes, e.g., alkylamides, alkaloids, glucosinolates,
organic acids, and hydantoin derivatives, were identified in the methanolic
extract using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography/high-resolution
mass spectrometry (UPLC/HRMS). Molecular docking simulations were
used to investigate the potential binding modes and the intermolecular
interactions of the identified compounds with ACE and renin active
sites. Glucotropaeolin, β-carboline alkaloids, succinic acid,
and 2,4-dihydroxy-3,5-cyclopentyl dienoic acid showed the highest
affinity to target the ACE with high docking scores (
S
ranging from −35.32 to −22.51 kcal mol
–1
) compared to lisinopril (
S
= −36.64 kcal
mol
–1
). Interestingly, macamides displayed the greatest
binding affinity to the active site of renin with docking scores (
S
ranging from −22.47 to −28.25 kcal mol
–1
). Further, β-carbolines achieved docking scores
comparable to that of the native ligand (
S
ranging
from −13.50 to −20.06 kcal mol
–1
).
Molecular dynamics simulations and MMPBSA were also carried out and
confirmed the docking results. Additionally, the computational ADMET
study predicted that the compounds attaining promising docking results
had proper pharmacokinetics, drug-likeness characteristics, and safe
toxicological profiles. Ultimately, our findings revealed that Maca
roots could be considered a promising candidate as an antihypertensive
drug.