An evaluation of neonicotinoids' potential to inhibit human cholinesterases: Protein–ligand docking and interaction profiling studies

Abstract

Many so-called neuroactive insecticides target invertebrate neurotransmitter systems, including the cholinergic system. With their relatively low toxicity to vertebrates, neonicotinoids represent a new class of neuroactive insecticides that bind to nicotinic receptors for acetylcholine in the insect central nervous system and result in paralysis and eventual death due to receptor overstimulation. On the understanding that, today, cholinesterase inhibitors are used to obtain the symptomatic relief of Alzheimer disease (AD), the aforementioned direct cholinomimetic action of neonicotinoids could, perhaps, confer anti-AD drug-like attributes to these compounds. It is shown here, using protein–ligand docking and interaction profiling, that neonicotinoids penetrate deep into the active-site gorge of both acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase and that they form relatively strong noncovalent bonds with multiple critical residues that normally bind/hydrolyze choline esters. With their gorge-spanning shape and dual-binding specificity, neonicotinoids (first-generation compounds in particular) represent promising leads for the development of reversible, mixed-type cholinesterase inhibitors in the fight against AD.