Abstract

Hepatitis C virus infection is the leading cause of chronic liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. There is no effective vaccine for hepatitis C virus prevention despite the fact that severalvaccinesare under development. Currently, the Unites States Food and drug administration approved combination drugs for all genotypes that would help to cure the infection more quickly and efficiently than ever before. However, the high costs, development of various side effects and emergence of drug resistant strains demand the need for new anti-viral to treat different stages of the hepatitis C virus life cycle. Focussing drug candidate from herbal ingredients is the novel approach of pharmaceutical science over the past few decades. In this perspective, the present study aimed to investigate the phytochemicals present in Acacia nilotica (L.) Delile against hepatitis C virus non-structural protein3-4A serine protease. The N-terminal Protease domain of non-structural protein3 along with non-structural protein4A protein is responsible for the cleavage of four polypeptide junctions’ viz., non-structural protein3-4A, non-structural protein4A-non-structural protein4B, non-structural protein4B-non-structural protein5A and non-structural protein5A-5B that are essential for viral genome replication. Hence targeting non-structural protein3-4A blocks the replication process. Here, in silico molecular docking study was executed to estimate the efficacy ofphytochemicals along with the two Food and drug administration approved hepatitis C virus non-structural protein3-4A inhibitors-Grazoprevir and simeprevir as reference compoundsagainst the selected target. Docking results revealed that about six phytochemicals (+)-Catechin 5-Gallate, Acacetin, (+)-Mollisacacidin, Catechin, Acalinol A and Chlorogenic acid are better than the reference compounds and hence selected as hits. Further, the hit molecules were filtered through analysing druglikeness properties, pharmacokinetics, medicinal chemistry friendliness including pan assay interference compounds and Brenk structural alerts, leadlikeness and finally prediction of potential toxicity and toxic substructure to ascertain a lead molecule. The results obtained in the current study propose Acacetin as the lead molecule for further in vitro and in vivo study.