Evaluation of anxiolytic, sedative, and antioxidant activities of Vitex peduncularis Wall. leaves and investigation of possible lead compounds through molecular docking study

Abstract

Vitex peduncularis, belongs to the Verbenaceae family, locally known as ‘Boruna’, ‘Horina’, ‘Ashmul gaas’, is commonly used for treating various chronic diseases in the folk medicine such as malarial fevers, jaundice, diabetes, chest pain, joint ache, abnormality in eyes & face, and urethritis, etc. In the present study, we investigated the anxiolytic, sedative, and antioxidant activities of ethanol extract of V. peduncularis leaves (EEVP) in both in vivo and in vitro models. Then, a molecular docking analysis was carried out to determine the possible lead compounds of EEVP for the biological properties described above. The anxiolytic and sedative activity of EEVP was determined using hole board and hole cross tests, respectively. Antioxidant activity was measured using DPPH and FRPA assays, whereas docking was done by using the Schrodinger suite (Maestro v10.1). Our result demonstrated that EEVP has significant and dose-dependent anxiolytic and sedative activity at the doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg (b.w.) in both models. This study also exhibited that EEVP has significant antioxidant activity compared to reference standard ascorbic acid. The molecular docking study revealed that 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, and vitexilactone have the best binding affinities against the target receptors (potassium channel receptor, human gamma-aminobutyric acid receptor, and human peroxiredoxin 5) for anxiolytic, sedative, and antioxidant activities. The present study confirmed that EEVP has anxiolytic, sedative, and antioxidant properties, which could be because of the occurrence of various phytochemicals and three bioactive phytocompounds which found potential during molecular docking analysis.