Abstract

Tubulin is a potent molecular target for development of anticancer agents. In this report, the binding of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as tubulin inhibitors potential are investigated by extensive computational techniques, such as, molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulations and binding free energy calculations. The results suggest that a potent indomethacin derivative inhibits the tubulin polymerization by interacting on the colchicine-site binding. This potential chemotherapeutic agent showed high stability in the molecular dynamics simulations, when complexed on the same binding site of colchicine, a potent and toxic, tubulin inhibitor. Then, our results can be useful designing new compounds for cancer treatments.

Keywords: Tubulin, chemotherapeutic agents, indomethacin derivative, molecular docking, molecular dynamics, binding free energy.