Anti-viral drug discovery against monkeypox and smallpox infection by natural curcumin derivatives: A Computational drug design approach

In the last couple of years, viral infections have been leading the globe, considered one of the most widespread and extremely damaging health problems and one of the leading causes of mortality in the modern period. Although several viral infections are discovered, such as SARS CoV-2, Langya Henipavirus, there have only been a limited number of discoveries of possible antiviral drug, and vaccine that have even received authorization for the protection of human health. Recently, another virial infection is infecting worldwide (Monkeypox, and Smallpox), which concerns pharmacists, biochemists, doctors, and healthcare providers about another epidemic. Also, currently no specific treatment is available against Monkeypox. This research gap encouraged us to develop a new molecule to fight against monkeypox and smallpox disease. So, firstly, fifty different curcumin derivatives were collected from natural sources, which are available in the PubChem database, to determine antiviral capabilities against Monkeypox and Smallpox. Material and method: Preliminarily, the molecular docking experiment of fifty different curcumin derivatives were conducted, and the majority of the substances produced the expected binding affinities. Then, twelve curcumin derivatives were picked up for further analysis based on the maximum docking score. After that, the density functional theory (DFT) was used to determine chemical characterizations such as the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO), lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO), softness, and hardness, etc.

In conclusion, each derivative of curcumin has outstanding absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADMET) characteristics. Hence, we recommended the aforementioned curcumin derivatives as potential antiviral agents for the treatment of Monkeypox and Smallpox virus, and more in vivo investigations are warranted to substantiate our findings.

The mentioned derivatives demonstrated docking scores greater than 6.80 kcal/mol, and the most significant binding affinity was at -8.90 kcal/mol, even though 12 molecules had higher binding scores (-8.00 kcal/mol to -8.9 kcal/mol), and better than the standard medications. The molecular dynamic simulation is described by root mean square deviation (RMSD) and root-mean-square fluctuation (RMSF), demonstrating that all the compounds might be stable in the physiological system.