Forging of nicotine for the effective management of diabetic wounds: A hybrid of scaffold hopping and molecular dynamics simulation approaches

Diabetic wound (DW) is a huge threat to the health care community and is always challenging to treat. The main biochemical culprits in DW recalcitrance are elevated inflammatory mediators, proteases, cell proliferation and migration suppressors, anti-angiogenic factors, and bacterial infections. In this scenario, using a scaffold to target important factors at each stage of pathogenesis can accelerate the healing process. Many shreds of evidence disclosed the role of nicotine scaffold in handling inflammation, infection, proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis. All these factors made us forge nicotine by employing a scaffold hopping approach. The hops were then subjected to molecular docking and binding free energy calculations against Matrix metallopeptidase 9, Glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta, Tumor necrosis factor alpha, MurC and ParE enzymes. Gratifyingly, molecule H1 was found to possess significant inhibitory activity against the selected receptors as evidenced by their high negative glide score and binding energy. Furthermore, 100 ns of molecular dynamics simulation studies (MD) was performed for the five H1/4XCT, H1/5F95, H1/2AZ5, H1/4C13 and H1/4MOT complexes to get insight into the binding modes and stability. The MD results showed significant stability as evidenced by the low conformational changes of the H1 with the chosen receptors. Hence, H1 might be a druggable candidate in the therapeutic management of DW. However, further research is strongly recommended to advance the drug into the therapeutic pipeline.