Open Access DOI: 10.7324/JAPS.2012.2619
Tumour necrosis factor is a polypeptide cytokine involved in inflammation and the acute phase response. TNF-alpha is present in larger quantities in persons with rheumatoid arthritis. Direct inhibition of TNF-α by the commercial biological agents has produced significant advances in rheumatoid arthritis treatment and validated the extra-cellular inhibition of this proinflammatory cytokine as an effective therapy. However, viable leads molecule that inhibits TNF-α have not been reported . Bioinformatics is seen as an emerging field with the potential to significantly improve how drugs are found brought to the clinical trials and eventually released to the marketplace. Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) is a specialized discipline that uses computational methods to stimulate drug-protein interaction. Discovery studio 2.1 provides a set of protocols for predicting and analyzing the interaction between protein and ligands. Molecular Docking experiments were carried out for the compounds identified from Pseudarthria viscida root extract with TNF-alpha using Accelry’s DISCOVERY STUDIO 2.1. Docking is a method which predicts the preferred orientation of one molecule to a second when bound to each other to form a stable complex. Out of 13 compounds characterized from Pseudarthria viscida, only one of them docked with Tumour necrosis factor α.