Evaluation of Carvacrol and its Receptor (Ubiquinone-c-reductase) as a Potential Anti-malarial Drug

Abstract

In recent times natural products are exploiting for its medicinal properties due to its minimum side-effects. Carvacrol which is one of the monoterpene’s isolated from the essential oil of Oreganum vulgare possesses various antimicrobial, anti-oxidant and anti-cancerous activities. Therefore, in this present study carvacrol was selected to study its anti-malarial activity. A comparative study of commercially available drugs (Malarone) and carvacrol was conducted to understand the putative mechanism of action of carvacrol and its potential as a natural anti-malarial drug. Way2drug tool was used to predict the biological activity of the compound using the PASS Online server to predict the target protein of carvacrol. Further, Ubiquinone-c-reductase was selected for molecular docking with carvacrol because Malarone cures malaria by inhibiting the activity of enzyme. Ubiquinone-c-reductase is the key enzyme of the electron transport chain. It resulted that the amino acids positioned at 264-267 in chain ‘A’ of ubiquinone-c-reductase, were efficiently targeted by carvacrol with a minimum energy value of -5.4 Kcal/ mol. The present study resulted that carvacrol behaves as a natural blocker for ub-c-reductase may serve as a possible mechanism to develop carvacrol as a potential herbal anti-malarial drug. How to cite this article:Bansal A, Sharma NR, Upadhyay AK, Kaushik S, Thomas TG. Evaluation of Carvacrol and its Receptor (Ubiquinone-c-reductase) as a Potential Anti-malarial Drug. J Commun Dis 2019; 51(4): 16-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/0019.5138.201932