Uncovering Naringin’s Anticancer Mechanisms in Glioblastoma via Molecular Docking and Network Pharmacology Approaches

Abstract

Naringin, a flavonoid, exhibits diverse therapeutic properties and has been proven to exert cytotoxic effects on cancer cells. Nevertheless, the precise mechanism of naringin maintaining its cytotoxic effect on glioblastoma (GBM) remains unknown. Thus, the current study aimed to establish a plausible cellular mechanism for Naringin's inhibition of GBM. We employed various system biology techniques to forecast the primary targets, including gene ontology and cluster analysis, KEGG enrichment pathway estimation, molecular docking, MD (molecular dynamic) simulation and MMPBSA analysis. Glioblastoma target sequences were obtained via DisGeNet and Therapeutic Target Prediction, aligned with naringin targets, and analyzed for gene enrichment and ontology. Gene enrichment analysis identified the top ten hub genes. Further, molecular docking was conducted on all identified targets. For molecular dynamics modelling, we selected the two complexes that exhibited the most docking affinity and the two most prominent genes of the hub identified through analysis of the enrichment of genes. The PARP1 and ALB1 signalling pathways were found to be the main regulated routes. Naringin exhibited the highest binding potential of -12.90 kcal/mol with PARP1 (4ZZZ), followed by ABL1 (2ABL), with naringin showing a -8.4 kcal/mol binding score, as determined by molecular docking. The molecular dynamic approach and MM-PBSA investigation revealed that the complex of Naringin, with 4ZZZ (PARP1) and, 2ABL(ABL1), demonstrated the highest stability. Analyses of the signalling pathway suggested that naringin may have anticancer effects against GBM by influencing the protein PARP and ALB1 levels. Since it was developed In-silico, this study will expand to validate the mechanism in wet labs.