Identification of potential inhibitors of Leishmania donovani Sterol 24-C- methyltransferase: in silico and in vitro studies.

Leishmania donovani causes the neglected tropical disease visceral leishmaniasis. There is currently no vaccine available to combat the disease. Therefore, chemotherapy is the only treatment option available. However, the available drugs have various adverse effects on the host. As a result, new drugs are needed to treat the disease; natural compounds can be used as an alternative to traditional drugs. This study examined apigenin, diosmin, and naringin as prospective inhibitors against the Leishmania donovani Sterol 24-C- methyltransferase enzyme (LdSMT). All three compounds have a high affinity for the LdSMT and remain stable for 100 ns during the molecular dynamics simulation. In the cell viability assays, these compounds showed excellent IC50 values, with apigenin having the best IC50 value of 16.11 µM against Leishmania donovani promastigote. The findings of this study showed that all three flavonoids could be used as a safe alternative to conventional anti-leishmanial drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]