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Inhibition of jack bean urease by amphiphilic peptides

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Abstract

In the current study, amphiphilic peptides were designed and screened against Jack bean urease by using computer aided drug discovery approach. The result showed that out of thirty-eight amphiphilic peptides 1, 3, 12, 18, 30, and 33 exhibit stronger binding affinity with the active site of the enzyme through chelation of charged amino acids with the nickel ions i.e., Ni+2 841 and Ni+2 842 as well as hydrophobic contacts of the nonpolar tail with the nonpolar residues in the active site. The selected amphiphilic peptides were synthesized by solid-phase peptide synthesis strategy, characterized by fast atomic bombardment mass spectroscopy (FAB-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H and 13C-NMR) and in vitro urease inhibitory activity of amphiphilic peptides was studied. Amphiphilic peptides 12 and 33 showed excellent urease inhibitory activity, (p < 0.001) with IC50 values 20.5 ± 0.01, and 28.1 ± 0.03 µM respectively, which was considerably better than thiourea used as positive control.

Highlights

  • Molecular docking.

  • Solid-phase synthesis of amphiphilic peptides.

  • FAB MS-MS and 1H and 13C NMR study of amphiphilic peptides.

  • Urease inhibitory activity.

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Funding

Thanks to Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan, for providing SRGP project (NO: 21-1505/SRGP/R&D/HEC/2017) and 8169 /Sindh/NRPU/R&D/HEC/2017 from the Higher Education Commission, Pakistan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Swabi, Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 23430, Pakistan

    Zafar Ali Shah, Sadam Hussain, Nawab Ali & Muhammad Nasimullah Qureshi

  2. H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan

    Serab Khan & Farzana Shaheen

  3. Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jinnah Sindh Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan

    Samiullah Burki

  4. Department of Pharmacy, University of Swabi, Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 23430, Pakistan

    Syed Uzair Ali Shah, Ashfaq Ahmad & Syed Muhammad Mukrram Shah

  5. College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Faiz -Ur-Rehman

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  1. Zafar Ali Shah
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Shah, Z.A., Hussain, S., Khan, S. et al. Inhibition of jack bean urease by amphiphilic peptides. Med Chem Res 30, 1569–1576 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00044-021-02757-y

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