Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to evaluate the acetylcholinesterase inhibitory profile of some commercially available flavonoids in the management of Alzheimer's disease

- Flavonoids exhibit better binding modes compared with donepezil against AChE.
- Isoleucine 294 is the major contributor in the target-ligand interactions.
- Scopoletin possesses highest AChE activity in both in silico and in vitro studies.
- Flavonoids may serve as potential leads in the development of AChE inhibitors.

The current objective of the study is to identify inhibitory affinity potential of the certain commercially available flavonoids, against crystal structure of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) enzyme using in silico and in vitro studies. The inhibitory profiles of the compounds have been compared with standard AChE inhibitor donepezil. In the docking studies, conformational site analysis and docking parameters like binding energy, inhibition constant and intermolecular energy were determined using AutoDock 4.2. Docking studies conducted with diosmin, silibinin, scopoletin, taxifolin and tricetin exhibited tight binding forces prevailing with the enzyme than between donepezil. Based on the in silico studies, compounds were selected for the in vitro AChE inhibitory assay. In vitro results showed that all the selected flavonoids displayed excellent concentration-dependant inhibition of AChE. Scopoletin was found to be the most potent and specific inhibitor of the enzyme with IC50 values of 10.18 ± 0.68 μM. Scopoletin showed several strong hydrogen bonds to several important amino acid residues against target enzyme. A number of hydrophobic interactions could also explain the potency of the compounds to inhibit AChE. These molecular docking and in vitro analyses could lead to the further development of potent acetylcholinesterase inhibitors for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.