Work

Target-specific therapeutic assessment of repurposed drug candidates for oral lichen planus: a network pharmacology-molecular dynamics simulation guided investigation

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic mucocutaneous autoimmune skin disease without a proper pathophysiology and approved therapy. As a result, several repurposed drugs have been used in clinical practice, and it remains unclear which one holds greater potential. AIM: The present study employs a network pharmacology to explore the disease biology and further investigate the target-specific binding efficacy of repurposed drugs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-eight repurposed drug's (D1-D28) efficacies against twelve targets were investigated using PyRx 0.8-AutoDock 4.2 software. Further, drug stability and reactivity were studied using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation at 200 ns, Gibbs free energy, frontier molecular orbital theory, and structural activity relationship. RESULTS: The above computational investigation suggested betamethasone (D2/BETA) and triamcinolone acetonide (D28/TACA) are two potential drugs, predominantly demonstrating higher binding efficacy against the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Further, MD simulation, free-energy calculation revealed that D28/TACA was comparatively more stable than D2/BETA. CONCLUSION: The network pharmacology explored possible drug targets for drug discovery and showed that D28/TACA is a more effective treatment option among repurposed drugs.

Source: BDJ Open

DOI: 10.1038/s41405-025-00384-y

Authors: Alaka Sahoo, Shasank Sekhar Swain, Satya Ranjan Singh, Atala Bihari Jena, Sudhir Kumar Paidesetty, Asim K. Duttaroy, Maitreyee Panda