Investigation on the mechanisms by which the herbal remedies induce anti-prostate cancer activity: uncovering the most practical natural compound

Abstract

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most reported cancers among men worldwide. Targeting the essential proteins associated with PCa could be a promising method for cancer treatment. Traditional and herbal remedies (HRs) are the most practical approaches for PCa treatment. Here, the proteins and enzymes associated with PCa were determined based on the information obtained from the DisGeNET database. The proteins with a gene-disease association (GDA) score greater than 0.7 and the genes that have a disease specificity index (DSI) = 1 were selected as the target proteins. 28 HRs with anti-PCa activity as a traditional treatment for PCa were chosen as potential bioactive compounds. More than 500 compound-protein complexes were screened to find the top-ranked bioactives. The results were further evaluated using the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and binding free energy calculations. The outcomes revealed that procyanidin B2 3,3′‐di‐O‐gallate (B2G2), the most active ingredient of grape seed extract (GSE), can act as an agonist for PTEN. PTEN has a key role in suppressing PCa cells by applying phosphatase activity and inhibiting cell proliferation. B2G2 exhibited a considerable binding affinity to PTEN (11.643 kcal/mol). The MD results indicated that B2G2 could stabilize the key residues of the phosphatase domain of PTEN and increase its activity. Based on the obtained results, the active ingredient of GSE, B2G2, could play an agonist role and effectively increase the phosphatase activity of PTEN. The grape seed extract is a useful nutrition that can be used in men’s diets to inhibit PCa in their bodies.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Keywords:

• Prostate cancer
• PTEN
• grape seed extract
• GSE
• B2G2

Acknowledgments

The numerical calculations reported in this paper were fully/partially performed at TUBITAK ULAKBIM, High Performance and Grid Computing Center (TRUBA resources).

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific Research Project Fund of Sivas Cumhuriyet University (CUBAP) under the project number RGD-020.