Quantification of selected polyphenols in hydroethanolic garlic extract using high performance liquid chromatography and their effects on drosophila neuropeptides: a molecular docking study

Abstract

Garlic (Allium sativum) is a bulbous plant, which has been established to possess diverse medicinal properties. The neuropeptides of Drosophila melanogaster function to control major metabolic activities of the fruit flies. Thus, this study aimed to identify polyphenols that can distort the expression of some selected neuropeptides that are responsible for satiety in Drosophila melanogaster . High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLCHPLC) analysis was performed on hydroethanolic garlic extract, after which an in silico pharmacokin etics screening and molecular docking studies were performed using 10 selected polyphenols in garlic as ligands, and UDP 2 , Hugin and dNPF as neuropeptide targets responsible for satiety. The hydroethanolic garlic extract had gallic acid to be most abundant , followed by isovallinic acid and protocatechuic acid (7.736, 3.024 and 2.235 ppm respectively). The least present polyphenols are quercetin, rutin, orientin and isoorientin (0.561, 0.907, 0.948 and 0.913 ppm respectively). However, after docking analysis , isoorientin showed the best binding affinity with all the neuropeptide targets that were analysed at their respective binding site with docking score of upto 7.8 kcal/mol. This study predicted that isoorientin could serve as therapeutic agents to control satiety.