Olugbenga Morebise
PhD,American University of St. Vincent School of Medicine.
Title: Elucidating the Anti-inflammatory Properties of Garcinia kola and Vernonia amygdalina through in silico molecular biology techniques
Biography
Biography: Olugbenga Morebise
Abstract
Inflammation is implicated in many disorders, including communicable and noncommunicable diseases. Cyclooxygenase-2 (Cox-2) is a key enzyme involved in the production of prostaglandins implicated in inflammatory disorders. G. kola and V. amygdalina are medicinal plants being used for treating various ailments in many parts of the world and extensive in vitro and in vivo studies have confirmed their anti-inflammatory properties. Five phytochemicals were selected from the two plants; aspirin and celecoxib were used as reference drugs. This study investigated the interactions of the seven ligands with the Cox-2 enzyme, using in silico molecular biology techniques.The 3-D structures of the seven ligands were retrieved from the PubChem database in their Structure Data Format (SDF). Cox-2 was retrieved in its Protein Data Bank (PDB) format. The ligands and the protein were converted to their pdbqt formats and subjected to molecular docking through standard bioinformatics procedures.