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. 2023 Mar 25;16(4):489.
doi: 10.3390/ph16040489.

Antidiarrheal Potential of Viola canescens: In Vivo and In Silico Approaches

Imtiaz Ahmad  1   2 , Bader S Alotaibi  3 , Nosheen Malak  4 , Fayaz Asad  1 , Barkat Ullah  5 , Nasreen Nasreen  4 , Adil Khan  1 , Chien-Chin Chen  6   7   8   9
Affiliations

Antidiarrheal Potential of Viola canescens: In Vivo and In Silico Approaches

Imtiaz Ahmad et al. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). .

Abstract

Viola canescens Wall. is an important medicinal plant with reported therapeutic benefits. The current work sought to investigate the antidiarrheal properties of V. canescens extracts both in vivo and in silico. This study applied molecular docking to unravel the molecular mechanism of V. canescens and to find the most effective phytocompounds with antidiarrheal effects. The antidiarrheal activity of V. canescens was assessed utilizing the castor oil-induced diarrhea assay and the charcoal meal assay. Antidiarrheal characteristics were evaluated by measuring parameters such as intestinal motility, fecal score, and hypersecretion. The V. canescens extract had a dose-dependent and statistically significant impact in the charcoal meal assay and castor oil-induced diarrhea assay. In the castor oil-induced diarrhea assay, the ethyl acetate fraction (65.96%) showed the highest percentage of defecation inhibition at the highest dose (300 mg/kg (bw)), followed by the uncorrected crystalline compound (63.83%), crude alkaloids (63.83%), chloroform fraction (63.83%), and crude flavonoids (55.32%), while the aqueous fraction (40.43%) and n-Hexane fraction (42.55%) revealed the lowest antidiarrheal potential. In addition, the molecular docking investigation showed emetine, quercetin, and violanthin, isolated chemicals of V. canescens, to have the highest binding affinity to the target μ and δ opioid receptors with significant inhibitory capacity. These pharmacologically active metabolites in V. canescens were effective in treating diarrhea. This study lends credence to the traditional usage of V. canescens in treating gastrointestinal disorders.

Keywords: Viola canescens; antidiarrheal; charcoal assay; molecular docking; phytocompounds; quercetin; violanthin.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Active sites of 5C1M and 4EJ4 protein found through CASTp server.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) ADMET bars for emetine (compound 1). (B) ADMET bars for quercetin (compound 2). (C) ADMET bars for violanthin (compound 3).
Figure 3
Figure 3
(A) 5C1M protein, (B) 4EJ4 protein, (C) the 3D interaction of emetine with 5C1M protein, (D) the 3D interaction of quercetin with 4EJ4 protein, (E) the 2D interaction of emetine with 5C1M protein, and (F) the 2D interaction of quercetin with 4EJ4 protein.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Molecular dynamics’ simulation of the predicted ligand–protein complex; complex stability was assessed through (A) deformability, (B) B-factor values, (C) variance, (D) eigenvalue, (E) the covariance of residue index, and (F) elastic network analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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