Identification of Fungal Bioactive Compounds Targeting MMP-9 for Endometriosis- An In silico Approach

Background: Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the female reproductive system characterized by the presence of endometrial tissue outside the uterus that affects 5 to 10% of women of reproductive age, which is approximately 176 million women in the world. The women suffering from endometriosis have been reported to have high levels of matrix metalloproteinase (especially MMP-9) which regulates the inflammatory process. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the naturally available anti-inflammatory fungal compounds that can target the MMP-9 by various in silico approaches.

Methodology: A wide variety of anti-inflammatory bioactive compounds were screened and five compounds were further selected based on ‘Lipinski’s rule of five’ using the PubChem database. The bioavailability, pharmacokinetics, ADMET properties and biological activity of these compounds were predicted computationally using databases such as SWISS-ADME, PubChem, pkCSM and PASS. The target 1L6J (Crystal structure of human matrix metalloproteinase MMP-9) structure was retrieved from the PDB database. Comparative analysis of the bioactive compounds with the target was performed by AutoDock 4.2.6 and further visualisation of the target residues interacting with the compounds was performed using LigPlot v.2. 2. tool.

Results: Based on the docking results, the compounds namely, Ergosterol peroxide, Lovastatin, Javanicin, Asperlin and Ergothioneine exhibited binding energy value of -10.25 kcal/mol, -8.4 kcal/mol, -7.64 kcal/mol, -7.07 kcal/mol and -6.19 kcal/mol respectively whereas Elagolix (control drug) exhibited binding energy value of -4.88 kcal/mol, thus, indicating that the selected bioactive compounds were seen to have better binding energy comparative to the control drug.

Conclusion: Ergosterol peroxide derived from edible mushroom might act as a potential lead compound for designing a therapeutic drug for treating endometriosis and this compound can further be explored to evaluate its level of toxicity and efficacy in the wet laboratory studies by in vitro and in vivo methods.