IN SILICO SCREENING OF POTENTIAL DRUG (PHYTOCHEMICALS) AGAINST INTERLEUKIN-6 THE KEY PROTEIN INVOLVED IN METASTASIS.

Cancer is not a single disease. It's a group of diseases characterized by the uncontrolled growth of cells which results in tumors. The cells from the tumor at one point will start spreading to other organs which are termed metastasis. Mostly 90 percent of cancer patients die due to metastasis. A lot of treatments fail because of the complexity of cancer. The cancer cells can keep on mutating to adapt to the new environment. There are many different treatments available for cancer. But the most common ones are radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Both treatments can kill the cancer cells most often they end up killing the normal cells too. Then reduced sensitivity of the cancer cells to these treatments particularly in the advanced stages of cancer leads to ineffective treatment. The release of secretory factors from the cancer cells confers resistance to the cancer cells against therapy. Interleukin 6 which is found to be high in the tumor microenvironment regulates different signaling pathways and confers resistance to the cancer cells against damage. There are a lot of natural phytochemicals which can block interleukin 6 and thereby block metastasis. In this study, we selected 80 phytochemicals and studied their interaction capacity with the Interleukin -6.  The phytochemicals were analyzed using molecular docking studies ADME-properties, and drug-likeness using the Schrodinger software. The phytochemicals were then analyzed using different software like protox and toxpro to study the anticarcinogenic, immunogenic, and genotoxic effects as well as the toxicity effects. The phytochemical Secoisolariciresinol has significantly interacted with active residues and it is an Interleukin -6 antagonist according to the protox II app too, which supports our results.

Keywords: Phytochemicals, Interleukin -6, protox2, ADMET, Molecular docking, Protox-II, Stoptox, Secoisolariciresinol