Novel Drug Repurposing Strategy as an Alternative Therapeutic Concept for Scrub Typhus Using Computational Studies

Abstract

Scrub typhus is one of the most underdiagnosed and unreported febrile illnesses caused by an obligate intracellular bacterium named Orientia tsutsugamushi and the antibiotics were the commonly prescribed drugs to treat the condition. Due to the widespread development of antimicrobial resistance to the standard drugs, the new therapeutic approach is warranted. The drug repurposing approach plays a novel concept in identifying alternative therapies to fight against pathogens. To investigate the anti-scrub typhus activity of nine newly FDA-approved antibiotics from 2018-2019 against Orientia tsutsugamushi deubiquitylase (OtDUB) compared with standard drugs. The structure of ligands was retrieved from the PubChem database and the crystal structure of target OtDUB (PDB ID: 6UPU) with a resolution of 2.2 Ao was retrieved from the Protein data bank. Molecular docking studies were performed using PyRx version 0.8 and the amino acid interactions were visualized using BIOVIA Discovery studio and the pharmacokinetic properties of the drugs were analysed by SWISS ADME software. The binding affinity of the drugs to deubiquitylase and amino acids was determined using the In silico approach, the drug Omadacycline shows superior activity when compared with other drugs. Based on our preliminary in-silico docking studies, we conclude that Omadacycline may be repurposed for the treatment of scrub typhus as it shows a higher binding affinity of -8.6 kcal/mol when compared to the standard drugs. For the further advancement of the study, in vitro and in vivo studies should be performed.