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Piperine, an alkaloid of black pepper seeds can effectively inhibit the antiviral enzymes of Dengue and Ebola viruses, an in silico molecular docking study

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Abstract

Ebola and Dengue are the critical diseases caused by RNA viruses, especially in the tropical parts of the globe, including Asia and Africa, and no prominent therapeutic options are available so far. Here, an effort was made to evaluate the efficacy of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) alkaloid Piperine as a potential drug through computational docking simulation. Eight structurally essential proteins of Dengue and Ebola virus were selected as in silico docking targets for Piperine. Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Excretion profile showed that Piperine was safe and possessed significant drug-like properties. Molecular dynamic simulation and binding free energy calculation showed that Piperine could inhibit Methyltransferase (PDB id 1L9K) of Dengue and VP35 Interferon Inhibitory Domain (PDB id 3FKE) of Ebola virus in comparison with the commercial antiviral Ribavirin. Furthermore, statistical analysis based on multivariate and clustering approaches revealed that Piperine had more affinity towards viral proteins than that of Ribavirin.

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  1. Department of Life Sciences, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, India

    Anish Nag & Rajshree Roy Chowdhury

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  1. Anish Nag
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Correspondence to Anish Nag.

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Nag, A., Chowdhury, R.R. Piperine, an alkaloid of black pepper seeds can effectively inhibit the antiviral enzymes of Dengue and Ebola viruses, an in silico molecular docking study. VirusDis. 31, 308–315 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13337-020-00619-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13337-020-00619-6

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