Abstract
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder affecting more than 50 million people worldwide. It can be controlled by antiepileptic drugs
(AEDs) but more than 30% patients are still resistant to AEDs. To overcome this problem, researchers are trying to develop novel
approaches to treat epilepsy including the use of herbal medicines. The γ-amino butyric acid type-A receptor associated protein
(GABARAP) is ubiquitin-like modifier implicated in the intracellular trafficking of GABAAR. An
in silico
mutation was created at
116 amino acid position G116A, and an
in silico
study was carried out to identify the potential binding inhibitors (with antiepileptic
properties) against the active sites of GABARAP. Five different plant derived compounds namely (a) Aconitine (b) Berberine (c)
Montanine (d) Raubasine (e) Safranal were selected, and their quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR) have been
conducted to search the inhibitory activity of the selected compounds. The results have shown maximum number of hydrogen
bond (H-bond) interactions of Raubasine with highest interaction energy among all of the five compounds. So, Raubasine could be
the best fit ligand of GABARAP but
in vitro
, and
in vivo
studies are necessary for further confirmation.