In silico exploration of novel phytoligands against probable drug target of Clostridium tetani

Abstract

Though tetanus is an old disease with well known medicines, its complications are still a serious issue worldwide. Tetanus is mainly due to a powerful neurotoxin, tetanolysin-O, produced by a Gram positive anaerobic bacterium, Clostridium tetani. The toxin has a thiol-activated cytolysin which causes lysis of human platelets, lysosomes and a variety of subcellular membranes. The existing therapy seems to have challenged as available vaccines are not so effective and the bacteria developed resistance to many drugs. Computer aided approach is a novel platform to screen drug targets and design potential inhibitors. The three dimensional structure of the toxin is essential for structure based drug design. But the structure of tetanolysin-O is not available in its native form. Moreover, the interaction and pharmacological activities of current drugs against tetanolysin-O is not clear. Hence, there is need for three dimensional model of the toxin. The model was generated by homology modeling using crystal structure of perfringolysin-O, chain-A (PDB ID: 1PFO) as the template. The modeled structure has 22.7% α helices, 27.51% β sheets and 41.75% random coils. A thiol-activated cytolysin was predicted in the region of 105 to 1579, which acts as a functional domain of the toxin. The hypothetical model showed the backbone root mean square deviation (RMSD) value of 0.6 Å and the model was validated by ProCheck. The Ramachandran plot of the model accounts for 92.3% residues in the most allowed region. The model was further refined by various tools and deposited to Protein Model Database (PMDB ID: PM0077550). The model was used as the drug target and the interaction of various lead molecules with protein was studied by molecular docking. We have selected phytoligands based on literatures and pharmacophoric studies. The efficiency of herbal compounds and chemical leads was compared. Our study concluded that herbal derivatives such as berberine (7, 8, 13, 13a-tetradehydro-9,10-dimethoxy-2,3 [methylenebis(oxy)] berbinium), curcumin ((1E,6E)-1,7-bis (4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-1,6-heptadiene-3,5-dione), coumarin (2H-chromen-2-one), catechol (Benzene-1,2-diol) and diosphenol (2-hydroxy-3-methyl-6-propan-2-ylcyclohex-2-en-1-one) are the best inhibitors compared to known chemicals. Hence, these leads can be used as potential inhibitors against tetanolysin.