Inhibition of TNF-Alpha using Plant-Derived Small Molecules for Treatment of Inflammation-Mediated Diseases

Inhibition of TNF-α has become a feasible target for alleviating inflammation-mediated diseases. Currently, techniques developed, such as anti-TNF antibody therapies, prove not to be nearly as beneficial enough to effectively treat inflammation-mediated syndromes because of the increased risk for severe infections and malignancies. Our study has undertaken the attempt of identifying small molecules to inhibit TNF-α. This study manually selected 37 plant-derived compounds based on IC50 value from various literature, which showed inhibitory activity against TNF-α. By employing an in silico pipe-line, we have aimed to explore the binding modes, to discover the most possible mechanism of inhibition, as well as, for a deeper understanding of structural changes, which is necessary for rationalization of the targeted inhibition by our proposed bioactive compounds. Therefore, this study has identified two potential compounds through advanced induced fit docking and simulation study. The stability of protein-ligand complex and structural changes was studied by performing 100ns molecular dynamics simulation with its binding energy estimated through MM-PBSA analysis.