RESEARCH ARTICLE
Virtual Screening for Finding Novel COX-2 Inhibitors as Antitumor Agents
Zohreh S Badieyan1, 4, Seyed Adel Moallem*, 2, 3, 4, Soghra Mehri4, Shabnam Shahsavand4, Farzin Hadizadeh*, 1, 4
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
First Page: 15
Last Page: 19
Publisher ID: TOMCJ-6-15
DOI: 10.2174/1874104501206010015
Article History:
Received Date: 12/6/2012Revision Received Date: 18/4/2012
Acceptance Date: 21/5/2012
Electronic publication date: 20/9/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) enzyme binds to arachidonic acid resulting in the release of metabolites that induce pain and inflammatory responses. Recent studies have shown that strong COX-2 expression is highly correlated with increased tumor risk. Therefore, the development of potent COX-2 inhibitors to relieve pain and treat cancers requires further investigation. We used virtual screening to find three COX-2 inhibitors (Phar-95239, T0511-4424 and Zu- 4280011) from a huge zinc database containing 2000000 compounds. The effects of the compounds on COX-2 were compared to those on COX-1 using a colorimetric COX (ovine) screening assay kit. The selectivity index, the ratio of IC50 for COX-1 inhibition to that of COX-2, calculated were MTT assay was used to evaluate the cytotoxic activity of the compounds using different dilutions. The IC50 values were calculated. Based on the results of the MTT assay, the IC50 values for compounds Phar-95239, T0511-4424 and Zu-4280011 were 178.52, 143 and 97.61 µM, respectively, and the selectivity indices of the compounds were 11.36, 12.20 and 20.03, respectively. These results indicated a relationship between the selectivity index and anticancer activity. Zu-4280011 displayed the highest selectivity index and the best results in the MTT assay among selected componds.
