Structural studies on inhibitory mechanisms of antibiotic, corticosteroid and catecholamine molecules on lactoperoxidase

Aim: Lactoperoxidase (LPO) is an essential protein with broad spectrum antimicrobial activity present in mammalian milk. It imparts immunity to infants against wide range of pathogenic infections. Several in vitro studies have shown inhibition of LPO activity by pharmaceutical compounds including commonly used antibiotics such as ampicillin and gentamicin, and molecules like prednisolone, norepinephrine, etc. Prescription of such drugs to lactating mothers might have adverse health effects on infants. The aim of our study was the elucidation of the structural aspects of the inhibitory mechanism of ampicillin, gentamicin, amoxicillin, prednisolone and norepinephrine on LPO. Material and methods: Three dimensional structure of camel LPO (cLPO) was developed using homology modeling and used for in silico experimental studies. The Schrödinger induced fit docking along with binding affinity estimation experiments were performed. The cLPO and Ligands were prepared using Protein Preparation Wizard and Ligprep modules available in Schrodinger suite. For estimating Binding affinity Prime Molecular Mechanics with Generalized Born and Surface Area (MMGB-SA) module was used. Key results: The five drug ligands formed three to five hydrogen bonding interactions with cLPO. Amino acids Arg-231, Asp-232, Ser-370, Arg-371 and Glu-374 of cLPO were crucial for these interactions. The binding affinity values for gentamicin were highest and for norepinephrine were the lowest. Significance: This study concludes that the five drug molecules show potential ability to inhibit the LPO activity. Further, a very high sequence similarity of cLPO with human LPO imparts high significance to these conclusions in relation to human health especially in new born infants.