In silico Screening of Food and Drug Administration-approved Compounds against Trehalose 2-sulfotransferase (Rv0295c) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis: Insights from Molecular Docking and Dynamics Simulations.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a prominent global health challenge, distinguished by substantial occurrences of infection and death. The upsurge of drug-resistant TB strains underscores the urgency to identify novel therapeutic targets and repurpose existing compounds. Rv0295c is a potentially druggable enzyme involved in cell wall biosynthesis and virulence. We evaluated the inhibitory activity of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved compounds against Rv0295c of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, employing molecular docking, ADME evaluation, and dynamics simulations.

Methods: The study screened 1800 FDA-approved compounds and selected the top five compounds with the highest docking scores. Following this, we subjected the initially screened ligands to ADME analysis based on their dock scores. In addition, the compound exhibited the highest binding affinity chosen for molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to investigate the dynamic behavior of the ligand-receptor complex.

Results: Dihydroergotamine (CHEMBL1732) exhibited the highest binding affinity (-12.8 kcal/mol) for Rv0295c within this set of compounds. We evaluated the stability and binding modes of the complex over extended simulation trajectories.

Conclusion: Our in silico analysis demonstrates that FDA-approved drugs can serve as potential Rv0295c inhibitors through repurposing. The combination of molecular docking and MD simulation offers a comprehensive understanding of the interactions between ligands and the protein target, providing valuable guidance for further experimental validation. Identifying Rv0295c inhibitors may contribute to new anti-TB drugs.