Natural compounds as inhibitors of Beta catenin: An in silico study

Abstract

Demand for a new anti-cancer drug has been dramatically increasing in the recent years. The Wnt/β catenin pathway acts as significant modulator of colon cancer and now serve as a new drug target for the development of anti-cancer/anti-tumour molecules. In the present study, five compounds namely apigenin, galangin, luteolin, proanthocyanidin and silibinin were evaluated on their docking behaviour on beta (β) catenin protein. The docking studies and atomic contact energy (ACE) calculations shown that galangin exhibited the highest binding energy (-194.11 kcal/mol). Interestingly two ligands namely apigenin and galangin interacted with Ser246 amino acid residue of β catenin. Thus, the results of this present study exhibited the potential of these five ligands as β catenin inhibitory agent and also as anti-cancer agents.