Effects of Smokeless Tobacco Samples from Tabuk Saudi Arabia on Nitric Oxide Production: A Potential Risk for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases

Background: Smokeless tobacco (SLT) is traditionally used in Middle East countries. The several toxic constituents with potential carcinogenicity make it a serious human health risk. Literature regarding their effects on cardiac and cancer disease is lacking in Saudi Arabia. Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the adverse effect of 11 different samples of widely used SLT varieties from the Tabuk region - Saudi Arabia, on nitric oxide (NO) level and their potential risk on cardiovascular health, etiology and/or progression of cancers. Methods: Samples were collected from Tabuk, KSA and analyzed by the GC-MS technique. Nitric oxide inhibition was performed using J774.2 macrophages by the Griess method. The retrieved crystallized structure of human inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) from Brookhaven Protein Data Bank Repository PDB I.D: 3E7G with 2.20Å resolution was further prepared by structure using the MOE.2019 tool. The compounds abstracted from 11 different Shammah varieties were sketched by the MOE-Builder tool. Minimization for both receptor and compounds was performed via AMBER99 and MMFF99X force field implemented in MOE. Results: Nine samples (4 - 11) showed a potent suppressive effect on NO production with IC50 values ranging between (16.9-20.4 µg/mL), respectively. The samples (1 & 2) exhibited a moderate level of inhibition with IC50 ranging between 33.2 and 57.4 µg/mL, respectively. Interestingly, sample 4 consisting of compounds (13-15, 19-26, 28) that mostly belongs to the group fatty acid ester and phthalic acid ester showed the most potent suppressive effect. Molecular docking results revealed that the current local SLT constituents presented noticeable potency in different extract samples. Conclusion: Variable suppressive effects on NO were detected in the current SLT samples, where sample 4 was the most potent among all. The extract of the latter exhibited molecular interaction with the first shell amino acid residues of Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), which may anchor the plasticity and selectivity of the compounds present in it. The samples (4 -11) showed a potent inhibitory effect on the NO, where compound 26 (Phthalic acid ester) is common, and its adequate concentration may account for augmented biological activity. These results may effectively highlight their adverse effects on cardiovascular health and etiology and/or progression of cancer and may help in strengthening the social and governmental efforts in minimizing the use of these substances.

Methylaervine as Potential Lead Compound against Cervical Carcinoma: Pharmacologic Mechanism Prediction based on Network Pharmacology

Background: The discovery of therapeutic anticancer agents based on natural products is one of the current research focuses. Network pharmacology will broaden our understanding of drug actions by bioinformatics analysis. Objective: To explore the potential and provide scientific evidence for methylaervine as a lead compound against cervical carcinoma. Results: Methylaervine was synthesized with a total yield of 54.9%, which displayed activity against HeLa (IC50 = 15.4 µM) with good predicted pharmacokinetic properties, thus being considered a potential lead compound. The network pharmacology study indicated that methylaervine could act against cervical carcinoma by regulating the function of multiple pivotal targets, such as CTNNB1, PTPRJ, RPA1, and TJP1, mainly covering cell growth, cell motility, and cell proliferation. Moreover, docking analysis showed that hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions were the main forms of interactions. Conclusion: This work would provide new insight into the design of anti-cervical carcinoma drugs based on methylaervine.

Screening ,development of Transglutaminase-2 Inhibitors and its derivative as anti-lung cancer agent by insilico and invitro approach

Aim: Screening and development of TG2 inhibitors as anti lung cancer agent. Background: Transglutaminase 2 (TG2) is multifunctional and ubiquitously expressed protein from transglutaminase family. It takes part in various cellular processes and plays an important role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune, neurodegerative and also cancer. Background: Transglutaminase 2 (TG2) is multifunctional and ubiquitously expressed protein from transglutaminase family. It takes part in various cellular processes and plays an important role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune, neurodegerative and also cancer. Objective : The of proposed study is to focused on screening of potent inhibitors of TG2 by in-silico method and synthesis its derivative as well as analysis of its activity by invitro approach. Material and Methods: Molecular docking studies have been carried on the different classes of TG2 inhibitors against the target protein. Nearly thirty TG2 inhibitors were selected from literature and docking was performed against transglutaminase 2. The computational ADME property screening was also carried out to check their pharmacokinetic properties. The compounds which exhibited positive ADME properties with good interaction with possessing least binding energy were further validated for their anti-lung cancer inhibition property against A549 cell lines by cytotoxicity studies. Results: The results of present study indicate that the docked complex formed by cystamine showed better binding affinity towards target protein so, this derivative of cystamine is formed using 2,5 dihydrobenzoic acid. Invitro results revealed that both molecule proved good cytotoxic agent against A549 lung cancer (875.10, 553.22 µg/ml) respectively. Further its activity should be validated on TG2 expressing lung cancer. Conclusion : Cystamine and its derivative can be act as potential therapeutic target for lung cancer but further its activity should be validated on TG2 expressing lung cancer.

Large-scale Prediction of Drug-Protein Interactions Based on Network Information

Background: The prediction of drug-protein interaction (DPI) plays an important role in drug discovery and re-positioning. Unfortunately, traditional experimental validation of DPIs is expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, it is necessary to develop in silico methods for the identification of potential DPIs. Method: In this work, the identification of DPIs was performed by the generated recommendation of the unexplored interaction of the drug-protein bipartite graph. Three kinds of recommenders were proposed to predict the potential DPIs. Results: The simulation results showed that the proposed models obtained good performance in cross validation and independent test. Conclusion: Our recommendation strategy based on collaborative filtering can effectively improve the DPI identification performance, especially for certain DPIs lacking chemical structure similarity or genomic sequence similarity.

Antioxidant, cytotoxic activity and pharmacokinetic studies by SwissAdme, Molinspiration, Osiris and DFT of PhTAD-substituted dihydropyrrole derivatives

Background: Pyrrole compounds having a heterocyclic structure are the most researched and biological activities such as antioxidant and anticancer. Objective: Herein is a first effort to study the significance of heterocyclic compounds to include pyrrole and triazolidine-3,5-dion moiety, on the pharmacokinetic, antioxidant activity and cytotoxic activity on MCF-7 and MCF-12A cell lines. Method: The molecular structures of compounds I-XIV were simulated by the theoretical B3LYP/DFT method. Pharmacokinetic studies of PhTAD-substituted heterocyclic compounds (I-XIV) were analyzed to show Lipinski's rules via in-silico methods of Swiss-ADME. The drug likeness calculations were carried out Molinspiration analyses. The some toxicity risk parameter can be quantified using Osiris. Antioxidant activities determined by DPPH, Fe+2 ions chelating and reducing. Cytotoxic activity measured by MTT and RTCA. Results: Compared with the DPPH activity, the metal chelating activity exhibited serious similar antioxidant effects by PhTAD substituted pyrrole compounds. The same compounds showed the highest activity among the two antioxidant activities. The IC50 values of the compounds are in the range of 12 and 290 µM in MCF-7 cell line. In the MTT and RTCA assays, All compounds showed cytotoxic activity, but about half of the fourteen compounds showed high cytotoxicity. IC50 values of the compounds are in the range of 5 and 54 µM for MTT and range of 1.5 and 44 µM for RTCA. Conclusion: Data of the antioxidant and cytotoxic activity of PhTAD-substituted dihydropyrrole-derived compounds in MCF-7 and MCF-12A cell lines confirmed that the compounds are a biologically active compound and is notable for anti-cancer researches.

Nitric oxide inhibition assay and the respective target identification of an aptamer designed to control atherosclerosis

Introduction: Aptamers are emerging newer therapeutics and diagnostics can be designed to bind any kind of target proteins. Vascular endothelial damage by the excess amount of nitric oxide production in systemic circulation leads to the secretion of inflammatory chemoattractant and cell adhesion, which is the prime pro-atherogenic events in the formation of plagues at atrial intimal layers due to oxidation – sensitive mechanisms. Nitric oxide inhibition assay is one of the valuable qualitative anti-atherosclerosis matrices. Methods: In this research, Nitric oxide inhibition efficiency of a ssDNA aptamer on cell lines was studied and the respective targets of that aptamer were identified by network analysis. The aptamer used here was originally designed for Selectin P Ligand Protein to control atherogenic process. 20 nM of aptamer solution in LipofectamineTM 2000 shows the highest level of 70.5 % inhibition of nitric oxide liberation on 24 hours cultured medium of Lipopolysaccharide stimulated murine macrophage RAW 264.7 cell lines. Results: Protein interaction network analysis on the nitric oxide synthesis pathway interactors and the molecular docking analysis with network resulted proteins such as AKT Serine/Threonine Kinase 1, Calmodulin, Estrogen Receptor 1, and Nitric Oxide Synthase-3 confirms that the G – quadruplex Model of 18-mer sequence effectively binds on the active sites of Estrogen Receptor 1, and Nitric Oxide Synthase-3. Conclusion : The aptamer designed for atherosclerotic target have also exert significant nitric oxide inhibition to control the atherogenic events through the proteins, AKT1, NOS3 and ESR1.