European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

“PLANT METABOLITE AS A CURE FOR HEPATITIS DELTA VIRUS INFECTION – IN-SILICO ANALYSIS”

L.Infancia, C. Muthusamy, C. Thiyagarajan, T. Thirunalasundari*

ABSTRACT

Hepatitis D virus (HDV) is a sub-viral agent that occurs as co-infection with HBV. As of now there is no specific cure for HDV infection. Hence, the need of the hour is to find out a specific cure for it. It possesses two forms of delta antigens, as Small Hepatitis Delta Antigen (S-HDAg) and Large Hepatitis Delta Antigen (L-HDAg). The Small Hepatitis Delta Antigen is responsible for its replication and Large Hepatitis Delta Antigen is responsible for virion packaging. Hence, S-HDAg was chosen as the receptor for designing a drug for treating HDV infection by in-silico methods. The ligands were chosen from both commercially available drugs (pyridinone, silymarin, lamivudine, lonafarnib and ribavirin) and plant based molecules (urosilic acid, phyllanthin, hypophyllanthin, dasycyphin C, demethylwedelolactone and wedelolactone). The receptor was docked against these ligands and it was found that lonafarnib could be a better drug than pyridinone – a specific drug for HDV. Among plant based molecules demethylwedelolactone was found to be the most effective compound possessing an approximate efficiency equal to that of pyridinone. The other plant based molecules effective against S-HDAg could be followed as urosilic acid, wedelolactone, hypophyllanthin and dasycyphin C. Whereas, phyllanthin could be ineffective based on its binding energies. By exploring on stability of the binding, followed by in-vitro study on transformed clone a novel cure for HDV could be identified.

Keywords: Hepatitis D virus, delta antigen, in-silico, receptor, ligands, commercially available drugs, plant based molecules and drug.