RESEARCH PAPER
Figure from article: Pharmacophore-Guided...
 
HIGHLIGHTS
  • Integrated pharmacophore screening identified promising MAO-A inhibitors for neuropathy research.
  • Five-feature AAHRR pharmacophore captured essential characteristics of MAO-A binding sites.
  • Approximately 1,000 ZINC compounds passed pharmacophore and drug-likeness screening criteria.
  • ZINC02123682 achieved strongest docking score, interacting with key MAO-A residues.
  • One-nanosecond dynamics showed stable complex behavior, supporting further experimental validation.
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Diabetic Neuropathy (DN) is a severe diabetes complication linked to progressive peripheral nerve degeneration, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic neuropathic pain with no effective disease-modifying therapies available to date. Due to the key role of MAO-A in monoamine metabolism and reactive oxygen species production, its inhibition may help reduce oxidative stress–related neuronal damage in diabetic neuropathy. This study used a computational drug discovery approach targeting MAO-A. Ligand-based pharmacophore modeling was performed using 52 caffeine derivatives from the literature to create a dataset for energetic evaluation and identify new MAO-A inhibitors. A five-feature AAHRR hypothesis comprising two hydrogen bond acceptors, one hydrophobic and two aromatic rings was generated using the PHASE 3.0 module. A series of these 1,000 drug-like compounds were then retrieved by screening the ZINC database with validated pharmacophore model. They underwent molecular docking and high-throughput virtual screening against the human MAO-A crystal structure (PDB ID: 2Z5X). Among 591 compounds with appropriate binding profiles, the top ranked compound based on Glide G score was ZINC02123682 [(1r,4r)-4-((2-(5,7-dimethoxy-4-methyl-2-oxo-2H-chromen–3–yl)acetamido)methyl)cyclohexanecarboxylic acid] (Glide G-score = −7.54). The stability of the protein–ligand complex was additionally validated by 1000-ps molecular dynamics simulations in explicit TIP3P water environment using the OPLS_2005 force field, with stable RMSD fluctuations maintained within 2-4 Å and a favourable negative potential energy profile through the period of simulation. These data characterize ZINC02123682 as a structurally optimized and dynamically stable MAO-A inhibitor, providing an attractive lead compound in the development of potential new neuroprotective therapeutics for diabetic neuropathy.
ABBREVIATIONS
DN – Diabetic Neuropathy
MAO-A – Monoamine Oxidase A
MAO-B – Monoamine Oxidase B
ROS – Reactive Oxygen Species
FAD – Flavin Adenine Dinucleotide
5-HT – 5-Hydroxytryptamine
PDB – Protein Data Bank
AAHRR – Two Hydrogen-Bond Acceptors, One Hydrophobic Feature, Two Aromatic Rings
HBA – Hydrogen Bond Acceptor
HBD – Hydrogen Bond Donor
pIC50 – Negative Logarithm of IC50
IC50 – Half-Maximal Inhibitory Concentration
PHASE – Pharmacophore Identification and Searching
RMSD – Root Mean Square Deviation
VMS – Vector Match Selectivity
HTVS – High-Throughput Virtual Screening
MD – Molecular Dynamics
TIP3P – Three-Point Transferable Intermolecular Potential Water Model
OPLS_2005 – Optimized Potentials for Liquid Simulations 2005
MCMM – Monte Carlo Multiple Minimum
PRCG – Polak–Ribiere Conjugate Gradient
RMSF – Root Mean Square Fluctuation
Rg – Radius of Gyration
SASA – Solvent-Accessible Surface Area
MM/GBSA – Molecular Mechanics/Generalized Born Surface Area
MM/PBSA – Molecular Mechanics/Poisson–Boltzmann Surface Area
ROC-AUC – Receiver Operating Characteristic–Area Under the Curve
EF – Enrichment Factor
GH – Güner–Henry Score
BEDROC – Boltzmann-Enhanced Discrimination of ROC
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
None
FUNDING
This research received no external funding. All work was conducted using institutional resources without dedicated grant support.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known financial, personal, academic, or other relationships that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, the work reported in this manuscript. All authors confirm that there are no competing interests to declare.
PEER REVIEW INFORMATION
Article has been screened for originality
© 2026 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).
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