Constituents of buriti oil (Mauritia flexuosa L.) like inhibitors of the SARS-Coronavirus main peptidase: an investigation by docking and molecular dynamics

Abstract

Statistics show alarming numbers of infected and killed in the world, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which still doesn’t have a specific treatment and effective in combating all efforts to seek treatments and medications against this disease. Natural products are of relevant interest in the search for new drugs. Thus, Buriti oil (Mauritia flexuosa L.) is a natural product extracted from the fruit of the palm and is quite common in the legal Amazon region, Brazil. In the present work, the anti-Covid-19 biological activity of some constituents of Buriti oil was investigated using in silico methods of Molecular Docking and Molecular Dynamics Simulations. The main results of Molecular Docking revealed favorable interaction energies in the formation of the 2GTB peptidase complex (main peptidase of SARS-CoV) with the 13-cis-β-carotene ligands (ΔGbind = −10.23Kcal mol−1), 9-cis -β-carotene (ΔGbind = −9.82Kcal mol−1), and α-carotene (ΔGbind = −8.34Kcal mol−1). Molecular Dynamics simulations demonstrated considerable interaction for these ligands with emphasis on α-carotene. Such theoretical results encourage and enable a direction for experimental studies in vitro and in vivo, essential in the development of new drugs with enzymatic inhibitory action for Covid-19. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.