BIOPHARMACEUTICS & DRUG DISPOSITION, vol.43, no.2, pp.47-56, 2022 (SCI-Expanded)
Carbonic anhydrases (CAs, Enzyme Commission 4.2.1.1) convert carbon dioxide to bicarbonate in metabolism and use Zn2+ ions as a cofactor for their catalytic activity. The activators or inhibitors of CA-I and CA-II, which are the most abundant CA isozymes in erythrocytes, have pharmacological applications in medicine. So, investigation of drug-protein interaction of these isozymes is significant. On this basis, the objective of this study was to clarify the primer effects of widely used drugs on the activity of human CA-I and CA-II enzymes and elucidate the inhibition mechanism through molecular docking studies. For this aim isozymes were purified from human erythrocytes by affinity chromatography technique. Then inhibition profiles of antiulcer, glucocorticoids, and urological drugs were investigated. As a result, while budesonide had the highest inhibitory potency on hydratase activity of hCA-I with the IC50 of 0.08 mM, levofloxacin showed the highest inhibition effect on hCA-II with the IC50 of 0.886 mM. The most effective inhibitor on the esterase activity of isozymes was found as fluticasone propionate with the K-i values of 0.0365 +/- 0.016 mM and 0.054 +/- 0.018 mM respectively. However, by molecular docking study, it was estimated that budesonide showed maximum inhibition potency for both isozymes with the free binding energy of -7.58 and -6.97 kcal/mol, respectively. Consequently, it was observed that some of the drugs studied did not show any inhibitory effect. Drug-enzyme interactions were also estimated by molecular docking. This study could contribute to the discovery of new drug candidates and as well as target proteins.