Plerixafor and related macrocyclic amines are potential drug candidates in treatment of malaria by "filling the flap" region of plasmepsin enzymes

Phlorotannins as HIV Vpu inhibitors, an in silico virtual screening study of marine natural products

The importance of new effective treatment methodologies for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is undeniable for the medical society. Viral protein U (Vpu), one of the disparaged accessory proteins of HIV, is responsible for the dissemination of viral particles, and HIV mutants lacking Vpu protein have remarkably reduced pathogenicity. Here, we explored the marine natural products to find the leading structures which can potentially inhibit the activity of Vpu in silico. To fulfill this goal, we set up a virtual screening based on molecular docking to evaluate the binding capacity of different marine products to Vpu. For validation, we used molecular dynamics simulation and monitored the root mean square deviation value and binding interactions. The results were intriguing when we realized that the hit compounds (phlorotannins) had previously been identified as reverse transcriptase and HIV protease inhibitors. This research inaugurates a new road to combat HIV by multifaceted mode of action of these marine natural products without putting the normal cells in jeopardy (with their safe toxicological profile).

The art of suicidal molecular seduction for targeting drug resistance

The development of drug resistance is one of the most significant challenges of the current century in the pharmaceutical industry. Superinfections, cancer chemoresistance, and resistance observed in many non-infectious diseases are nullifying the efforts and monetary supplies, put in the advent of new drug molecules. Millions of people die because of this drug resistance developed gradually through extensive use of the drugs. Inherently, some drugs are less prone to become ineffective by drug resistance than others. Covalent inhibitors bind to their targets via a biologically permanent bound with their cognate receptor and therefore display more potent inhibiting characteristics. Suicide inhibitors or mechanism-based inhibitors are one of the covalent inhibitors, which require a pre-activation step by their targeting enzyme. This step accrues their selectivity and specificity with respect to other covalent inhibitors. After that pre-activation step, they produce an analogue of the transition state of the catalytic enzyme, which is practically incapable of dissociating from the enzyme. Suicide inhibitors, due to their high intrinsic affinity toward the related enzyme, are resistant to many mechanisms involved in the development of drug resistance and can be regarded as one of the enemies of this scientific hurdle. These inhibitors compete even with monoclonal antibodies in terms of their cost-effectiveness and efficacy.