RESEARCH ARTICLE
Non-Intercalative Triterpenoid Inhibitors of Topoisomerase II: A Molecular Docking Study
William N. Setzer*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 1
First Page: 13
Last Page: 17
Publisher Id: TOBCJ-1-13
DOI: 10.2174/1874847300801010013
Article History:
Received Date: 17/4/2008Revision Received Date: 9/5/2008
Acceptance Date: 29/5/2008
Electronic publication date: 10/07/2008
Collection year: 2008
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Theoretical flexible docking studies were carried out on a number of triterpenoids previously shown to be inhibitors of topoisomerase II in order to assess the nature of binding of these non-intercalative inhibitors to the enzyme. The molecular docking results suggest that most of the triterpenoids preferentially bind to the DNA binding site of topoisomerase II, while a few also bind to the ATP binding site. These results provide some insight into the mode of activity of these cytotoxic natural products.