Antituberculosis, antioxidant and cytotoxicity profiles of quercetin: a systematic and cost-effective in silico and in vitro approach

Abstract

The ineffectiveness and the slowdown of newer anti-TB drug approval rates directly indicate searching for potential alternative agents. However, validation of isolated phytochemicals through hit-and-trial experiments is more expensive and time-consuming. Simultaneously, cost-effective computational tools can recognize most potential candidates at an initial stage. The present study selected seven plant-derived polyphenols, then verified anti-TB and drug-ability profiles using advanced computational tools before the experimental study. Among all, the quercetin showed a potential docking-score within −8 to −11 kcal/mol than the standard isoniazid and ofloxacin, −5 to −10 kcal/mol. Additionally, quercetin exhibited a higher drug-ability score of 0.53 than isoniazid 0.19. Further, quercetin exhibited the minimum inhibitory concentration at 6 and 8 μg/mL, while ofloxacin showed at 2 μg/mL against InhA, and katG mutated Mtb-strains, respectively. Parallelly, quercetin showed promising free-radical-scavenging activity from nitric-oxide assay at IC₅₀ = 14.92 µg/mL, and lesser-cytotoxicity from cultured HepG2 cell lines at IC₅₀ = 159 µg/mL, respectively.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• isoniazid-resistant-Mtb
• anti-TB polyphenols
• antioxidant potency
• cytotoxicity profile

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the ‘ICMR-Post Doctoral Research Grant awarded to Dr. Shasank S. Swain (No.3/1/3/PDF(21)/HRD-2019-2) from the Indian Council of Medical Research, Department of Health Research, Govt. of India.