Abstract

Chikungunya fever caused by chikungunya virus is an Aedes mosquito borne disease responsible for recent epidemics not only in India but also in Africa, Southeast Asia and America. There are no reports of successful anti-viral drug or vaccine available for the treatment of this fever. Since the symptoms are very severe, development of specific treatment or prophylactic measures are need of the h to control this fever. India is known for its wealth of medicinal plants. Natural compounds from the medicinal plants have been used traditionally for the treatment of several infectious diseases. Indian medicinal plants namely Andrographis paniculata, Tinospora cordifolia and Carica papaya have been selected for this study based on the reports of their usage against this virus in our traditional medicine. The present study evaluates the potentiality of using various compounds derived from these plants as antiviral agent by computationally docking these compounds with some of the viral proteins responsible for its pathogenicity using Auto Dock program. The drug likeness of these compounds was also analyzed based on Lipinski’s rule of five. Out of 28 compounds tested, more than 15 compounds are found to be more effective in docking with 5 different viral proteins in comparison with the standard drug prescribed for this fever.