Investigation of The Potential Inhibitor Effects Of Lycorine On Sars-Cov-2 Main Protease (Mpro) Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations and MMPBSA

The main protease (Mpro or 3CLpro) plays important roles in viral replication and is one of attractive targets for drug development for SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we investigated the potential inhibitory effect of lycorine molecule as a ligand on SARS-CoV-2 using computational approaches. For this purpose, we conducted molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations MM-PB(GB)SA analyses. The findings showed that the lycorine ligand was successfully docked with catalytic dyad (Cys145 and His41) of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro with binding affinity changing between -6.71 and -7.03 kcal mol-1. MMPB(GB)SA calculations resulted according to GB (Generalized Born) approach in a Gibbs free energy changing between -24.925-+01152 kcal/mol between lycorine and SARS-CoV-2 which is promising. PB (Poisson Boltzmann) approach gave less favorable energy (-2.610±0.2611 kcal mol-1). Thus, Entropy calculations from the normal mode analysis (ΔS) were performed and it supported GB approach and conducted -23.100±6.4635 kcal mol-1. These results showed lycorine has a druggable potential but the drug effect of lycorine on COVID-19 is limited and experimental studies should be done with pharmacokinetic modifications that increase the drug effect of lycorine.