Virtual screening of zinc compounds similar to NSAIDS with better pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic profiles

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Pain is a common symptom that is managed in both outpatients and inpatients. There are many side effects associated with opioids such as respiratory depression, constipation, hyperalgesia, and tolerance. Non- steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs cause gastrointestinal tract (GIT) irritation and may be a risk factor for developing peptic ulcer disease. This study aimed to generate active analgesic agents from known analgesics, determine the docking scores of these agents to their receptors, determine the pharmacokinetic properties of these agents, and evaluate their toxicity profiles. METHODS: PubChem was used to download smiles for ibuprofen, aspirin and celecoxib. Avogadro optimized the ligands. The smiles were copied to SwissSimilarity and were used as query compounds to generate zinc compounds. DrugBank and Protein Data Bank were used to download cyclooxygenase 1 and 2. Molecular docking was done using Chimera and Autodock Vina. Smiles for both query compounds and generated zinc compounds were pasted onto the Protox II webserver and SwissADME for toxicity and pharmacokinetics properties determination. The data was presented in tabular forms with textual descriptions of the contents in the tables. RESULTS: Aspirin, ibuprofen and celecoxib’s zinc compounds were generated and the first 20 compounds were docked to COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes. Seven, one, and four of the docked compounds showed better binding energies to COX-2 than COX-1. The zinc compounds were analyzed for toxicity profiles. ZINC01680731 and ZINC33823423 were predicted to have LD50 of 1240 mg/kg as compared to aspirin’s 250mg/kg. Ibuprofen and ZINC39120409 showed LD50 of 299mg/kg and they were hepatoactive. Celecoxib and four of its zinc compounds showed LD50 of 1400mg/kg. All compounds had high GIT absorption and they conformed with Lipinski rule of five. CONCLUSIONS: ZINC01680731 0.994 and ZINC00600558 0.988 were identified as the best compounds as they showed better binding affinities, toxicities and pharmacokinetics properties compared to standard compounds