ABSTRACT:
Dengue is a prevalent disease affecting the citizens of both developed and developing countries. Dengue is transmitted by several species of mosquito within the genus Aedes, principally Aedes aegypti which bites during daylight hours. The dengue virus belongs to the Flaviviridae family of viruses that cause diseases in humans. Despite considerable progress in the treatment of dengue by antiviral agents, search for newer drugs continues because the existing synthetic drugs have several limitations. The herbal drugs with antiviral activity are yet to be commercially formulated as modern medicines, even though they have been acclaimed for their therapeutic properties in the traditional systems of medicine. The present work deals with the analysis of binding mechanism of some selected natural compounds from different Azardhicta and Swertia species against the novel targets for dengue namely viral protease NS3. The results revealed that most of the selected herbal lead compounds were effective targets against the receptors. These compounds showed favourable interactions with the amino acid residues thereby substantiating their proven efficacy as antiviral compounds. The resulting data of receptor-ligand interactions demonstrates that in silico screening method is highly efficient for identifying potential lead compounds against major disorders/diseases. The paper reports the in-silico docking results of some naturally occurring flavones on protease enzyme, which is a druggable target in the replication of dengue virus. One natural flavones bellidifolin has been reported to be active against it. The presence of hydroxy moiety in the side unit of the flavones seems to be instrumental in binding.