Molecular docking analysis of xanthine oxidase inhibition by constituents of cichory

Human xanthine oxidase is considered to be a target for therapy of hyperuricemia. Cichorium intybus is a Chinese plant medicine which widely used in Xinjiang against various diseases. In order to screen the inhibitors of xanthine oxidase from C. intybus and to explore main pharmacological actions of cichory a compound collection of C. intybus was built via consulting related references about chemical research on cichory. The three-dimensional crystal structure of xanthine oxidase (PDB code: 1N5X) from Protein Data Bank was downloaded.. Autodock 4.2 was employed to screen the inhibitors of xanthine oxidase from cichory 70 compounds were found to possess quite low binding free energy comparing with TEI (febuxostat). C. intybus contains constituents possessing potential inhibitive activity against xanthine oxidase. It can explain the main pharmacological actions of cichory which can significantly lower the level of serum uric acid.