Chemoinformatics and pharmacoinformatics approach for exploring the GABA-A agonist from Chinese herb suanzaoren

Abstract

This study is the first one to construct the reliable structure of the α1/γ2 interface of Gamma aminobutyric acid type A (GABA-A) receptor by homology modeling and refined every loop of the whole protein structure. The modeling GABA-A receptor was validated by docking the control compounds in binding site, checking the key residue in α1/γ2 interface, probability density function (PDF) value, and Ramachandran plot. This paper is also the first one to propose that jujubogenin is the effective component in suanzaoren decoction, neither jujuboside A nor jujuboside B by chemoinformatics and pharmacoinformatics approach. In addition, pharmacophore analysis showed that the oxygens on jujubogenin approached α1-TYR160 and γ2-LYS184, respectively. The comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) model yielded a q cv 2 value of 0.731 and an r 2 of 0.942 at 5 components. Comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA) produced a q cv 2 of 0.617 and an r 2 of 0.921 at 5 components. The CoMFA and CoMSIA models showed statistically significant results. Hence, based on the results of docking, ADMET descriptor, pharmacophore, and three-dimensional quantitative structure–activity relationship (3D-QSAR) studies, the jujubogenin was suggested to be the effective GABA-A agonist in suanzaoren decoction.