In-silico study of some natural compounds used as antifungal agents against Candida albicans

Fungal diseases are very common these days, so there is a high need to design and develop new antifungal drugs that can counter these diseases. Candida albicans is one of the opportunistic pathogenic yeasts that can cause serious diseases such as oropharyngeal candidiasis, vulvovaginal (genital) candidiasis, and invasive candidiasis (candidemia). This article focuses on the in-silico evaluation of anti-candidal activity of some natural compounds like ajoene, allicin, curcumin, gingerol, nimbin, nimbolide, nimonol and 6-Shogaol. Binding affinity of these compounds have been determined against the most common targets in C. albicans viz. cytochrome p450, lanosterol synthase, serine/threonine protein kinase, squalene monooxygenase, sterol-14-demethylase and thymidylate synthase. PatchDock and FireDock web servers were used to carry out the docking studies. The proposed targets of ajoene, allicin, curcumin, gingerol, nimbin, nimbolide, nimonol and 6-Shogaol are sterol 14-demethylase, cytochrome p450, cytochrome p450, cytochrome p450, cytochrome p450, squalene monooxygenase, lanosterol synthase and squalene monooxygenase respectively based upon the binding energies obtained by the docking studies. This study opens new avenues in the usage of the natural compounds as potential antifungal agents. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3911299