Molecular modeling studies of repandusinic acid as potent small molecule for hepatitis B virus through molecular docking and ADME analysis

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has affected over 300 million people worldwide which causes to induce mostly liver disease and liver cancer. It is a member of the family Hepadnaviridae which is a small DNA virus with unusual characters like retroviruses. Generally, hepatoprotective drugs provoke some side effects in human beings. For the reason, this study aims to identify alternative drug molecules from the natural source of medicinal plants with smaller quantity of side effects than those conventional drugs in treating HBV. Methods: We developed computational methods for calculating drug and target binding resemblance using the Maestro v10.2 of Schrodinger suite. The target and ligand molecules were obtained from recognized databases. Ligand molecules of 40 phytoconstituents were retrieved from variety of plants after we executed crucial analyses such as molecular docking and absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) analysis.Results: In the docking analysis, the natural analogues repandusinic acid showed better docking scores of –14.768 with good binding contacts. The remaining bioactive molecules corilagin, furosin, nirurin, iso-quercetin and gallocatechin also showed better docking scores.Conclusion: This computational analysis reveals that repandusinic acid is a suitable drug candidate for HBV. Therefore, we recommend that this analogue is suitable in further exploration using in vitro studies.