ABSTRACT

Drug repurposing is an emerging approach in the identification of new treatments. Filarial infection is a rare-neglected disease affecting more than 150 million people in hot climatic regions. The WHO recommends albendazole and ivermectin as the line of treatment against causative agents of filariasis. Our study implements repurposing for rare disease approach with the principle of re-using anti-helmentic drug (mebendazole) to understand its hidden potential against FtsZ protein. For this, albendazole sulfone which is presently an approved drug in MDR for treating filariasis was considered as the standard reference. Filarial causative agent W.bancrofti has functional b-tubulin along with FtsZ (cell division protein) sequence homology. Anti-helmentic drugs have a mechanistic target against b-tubulin which is functionally similar to the FtsZ protein molecule. Therefore, FtsZ can be targeted to study the effect of mebendazole as the anti-filarial agent. An effort was made to repurpose mebendazole drugs as an anti-helmentic agent with the use of computational docking studies carried out using SeeSARbiosolve software. Surprisingly, mebendazole showed more affinity towards cell division protein as compared to standard drug molecule scores. Our future scope aims to study the affinities and potential of mebendazole through virtual screening and in-vitro techniques. Keywords: SeeSARbiosolve, Drug Repurposing, FtsZ, Filariasis, Anti-helmentic drugs
Publication date: 01/07/2022

https://ijbpas.com/pdf/2022/July/MS_IJBPAS_2022_6221.pdf

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https://doi.org/10.31032/IJBPAS/2022/11.7.6221