Antiviral actions of natural compounds against dengue virus RNA dependent RNA polymerase: insights from molecular dynamics and Gibbs free energy landscape

Dengue fever, a major global health challenge, affects nearly half the world’s population and lacks effective treatments or vaccines. Addressing this, our study focused on natural compounds that potentially inhibit the dengue virus’s RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), a crucial target in the viral replication cycle. Utilizing the MTiOpenScreen webserver, we screened 1226 natural compounds from the NP-lib database. This screening identified four promising compounds ZINC000059779788, ZINC0000044404209, ZINC0000253504517 and ZINC0000253499146), each demonstrating high negative binding energies between −10.4 and −9.9 kcal/mol, indicative of strong potential as RdRp inhibitors. These compounds underwent rigorous validation through re-docking and a detailed 100 ns molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. This analysis affirmed the dynamic stability of the protein-ligand complexes, a critical factor in the effectiveness of potential drug candidates. Additionally, we conducted essential dynamics and free energy landscape calculations to understand the structural transitions in the RdRp protein upon ligand binding, providing valuable insights into the mechanism of inhibition. Our findings present these natural molecules as promising therapeutic agents against the dengue virus. By targeting the allosteric site of RdRp, these compounds offer a novel approach to hinder the viral replication process. This research significantly contributes to the search for effective anti-dengue treatments, positioning natural compounds as potential key players in dengue virus control strategies. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.