Virtual Potential of Some Curcumin Derivatives as Inhibitors to Influenza: A Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase

Abstract

Influenza is known as a contagious, acute respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses. And it can cause mild to severe illness, furthermore, it may predispose to exacerbation of underlying disease or development of secondary bacterial infections. Additionally, the resistance of the antiviral drugs is recently spreaded. And new antiviral drugs are still needed to treat influenza epidemics and pandemics. There are several natural compounds have antiviral activity, one of these compounds was curcumin. Several studies demonstrated the curcumin as directly effective upon viral infection. This effect was observed in ＂H1N1 as well as H6N1＂subtypes. So that in current study a 58-curcumin derivatives potential to be inhibitors to influenza receptors were analyzed. The ＂Hemagglutinin＂ (HA) and ＂neuraminidase＂ (NA). This done by modelling and molecular docking of curcumin compounds against the active site of these receptors. Moreover, the results were showed that curcumin compounds with the best docking score (Perfluoro curcumin, N-(4-Fluoropheny-lpyrazole) Curcumin, Curcumin glucuronide, Curcumin-difluorinated (CDF) and Curcumin glucuronide) were blocked the viral active sites of most strains. And these agents had an acceptable ＂Lipinski rule of five＂ properties. In conclusions, this study led to conclude that the chosen curcumin compound (Perfluoro curcumin, N-(4-Fluoropheny-lpyrazole) Curcumin, Curcumin glucuronide, Curcumin-difluorinated (CDF) and Curcumin glucuronide) may have the best studied properties and suggest them to future studies in combination to traditional antiviral agent, both in-vivo and in-vitro. The current data supply basic information for further wet lab experiments in order to develop more Curcumin derivatives to reach the best therapeutic values.