Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty Medicine & Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 2 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
J Pharm Bioallied Sci, 2020 Nov;12(Suppl 2):S676-S680.
PMID: 33828360 DOI: 10.4103/jpbs.JPBS_272_19

Abstract

The naturally derived flavonoids are well known to have anticarcinogenic effects. Flavonoids could be an alternative strategy for ovarian cancer treatment, due to existing platinum-based drugs are reported to develop resistance with low survival rates. Inhibition of antiapoptotic proteins, namely B-cell lymphoma (Bcl-2) and B-cell lymphoma-extra large (Bcl-xl), is the key target to stimulate apoptosis process in cancer cells. This study aimed to determine the binding interaction of five naturally derived flavonoids (biochanin A, myricetin, apigenin, galangin, and fisetin) with potential antiapoptotic target proteins (Bcl-2 and Bcl-xl). The molecular docking study was conducted using AutoDock Vina program. The binding affinity and the presence of hydrogen bonds between the flavonoids and target proteins were predicted. Our findings showed that all the flavonoids showed better binding affinity with Bcl-xl than that of Bcl-2 proteins. The highest binding affinity was recorded in fisetin-Bcl-xl protein complex (-8.8 kcal/mol). Meanwhile, the other flavonoids docked with Bcl-xl protein showed binding affinities, ranging from -8.0 to -8.6 kcal/mol. A total of four hydrogen bonds, four hydrophobic contacts, and one electrostatic interaction were detected in the docked fisetin-Bcl-xl complex, explaining its high binding affinity with Bcl-xl. The present results indicate that all flavonoids could potentially serve as Bcl-xl protein inhibitors, which would consequently lead to apoptotic process in ovarian cancers.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.