AfroDb: a select highly potent and diverse natural product library from African medicinal plants

PLoS One. 2013 Oct 30;8(10):e78085. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078085. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Computer-aided drug design (CADD) often involves virtual screening (VS) of large compound datasets and the availability of such is vital for drug discovery protocols. We assess the bioactivity and "drug-likeness" of a relatively small but structurally diverse dataset (containing >1,000 compounds) from African medicinal plants, which have been tested and proven a wide range of biological activities. The geographical regions of collection of the medicinal plants cover the entire continent of Africa, based on data from literature sources and information from traditional healers. For each isolated compound, the three dimensional (3D) structure has been used to calculate physico-chemical properties used in the prediction of oral bioavailability on the basis of Lipinski's "Rule of Five". A comparative analysis has been carried out with the "drug-like", "lead-like", and "fragment-like" subsets, as well as with the Dictionary of Natural Products. A diversity analysis has been carried out in comparison with the ChemBridge diverse database. Furthermore, descriptors related to absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity (ADMET) have been used to predict the pharmacokinetic profile of the compounds within the dataset. Our results prove that drug discovery, beginning with natural products from the African flora, could be highly promising. The 3D structures are available and could be useful for virtual screening and natural product lead generation programs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Africa
  • Biological Products / analysis
  • Computer-Aided Design
  • Databases, Factual*
  • Plants, Medicinal / chemistry*

Substances

  • Biological Products

Grants and funding

Financial support is acknowledged from the Chemical and Bioactivity Information Centre, University of Buea, through a Lhasa grant and also from the German Academic Exchange Service to FNK for his stay in Halle, Germany for part of his PhD, as well as from the ICTP through the OEA-AC-071 program. DZ acknowledges an International Foundation for Science, Stockholm, Sweden/Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, The Hague, The Netherlands (IFS/OPCW) grant (N°F/5122-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.