| Autor: |
Ferreira NCDS; Laboratory of Cellular Communication, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21040-360, Brazil., Viviani LG; Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo, São Paulo 05508-000, Brazil., Lima LM; Laboratory of Cellular Communication, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21040-360, Brazil., Amaral ATD; Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo, São Paulo 05508-000, Brazil., Romano JVP; Laboratory of Cellular Communication, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21040-360, Brazil.; Laboratory of Immunobiotechnology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-590, Brazil., Fortunato AL; Laboratory of Cellular Communication, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21040-360, Brazil., Soares RF; Laboratory of Applied Genomics and Bioinnovations, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21040-360, Brazil., Alberto AVP; Laboratory of Cellular Communication, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21040-360, Brazil., Coelho Neto JA; National Institute of Industrial Property, Rio de Janeiro 20090-910, Brazil.; Tijuca Campus, Veiga de Almeida University, Rio de Janeiro 20271-020, Brazil., Alves LA; Laboratory of Cellular Communication, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro 21040-360, Brazil. |
| Abstrakt: |
P2X7 is an ATP-activated purinergic receptor implicated in pro-inflammatory responses. It is associated with the development of several diseases, including inflammatory and neurodegenerative conditions. Although several P2X7 receptor antagonists have recently been reported in the literature, none of them is approved for clinical use. However, the structure of the known antagonists can serve as a scaffold for discovering effective compounds in clinical therapy. This study aimed to propose an improved virtual screening methodology for the identification of novel potential P2X7 receptor antagonists from natural products through the combination of shape-based and docking approaches. First, a shape-based screening was performed based on the structure of JNJ-47965567, a P2X7 antagonist, using two natural product compound databases, MEGx (~5.8 × 10 3 compounds) and NATx (~32 × 10 3 compounds). Then, the compounds selected by the proposed shape-based model, with Shape-Tanimoto score values ranging between 0.624 and 0.799, were filtered for drug-like properties. Finally, the compounds that met the drug-like filter criteria were docked into the P2X7 allosteric binding site, using the docking programs GOLD and DockThor . The docking poses with the best score values were submitted to careful visual inspection of the P2X7 allosteric binding site. Based on our established visual inspection criteria, four compounds from the MEGx database and four from the NATx database were finally selected as potential P2X7 receptor antagonists. The selected compounds are structurally different from known P2X7 antagonists, have drug-like properties, and are predicted to interact with key P2X7 allosteric binding pocket residues, including F88, F92, F95, F103, M105, F108, Y295, Y298, and I310. Therefore, the combination of shape-based screening and docking approaches proposed in our study has proven useful in selecting potential novel P2X7 antagonist candidates from natural-product-derived compounds databases. This approach could also be useful for selecting potential inhibitors/antagonists of other receptors and/or biological targets. |
