Exploration of Potential Ewing Sarcoma Drugs from FDA-Approved Pharmaceuticals through Computational Drug Repositioning, Pharmacogenomics, Molecular Docking, and MD Simulation Studies

ACS Omega. 2022 Jun 1;7(23):19243-19260. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c00518. eCollection 2022 Jun 14.

Abstract

Novel drug development is a time-consuming process with relatively high debilitating costs. To overcome this problem, computational drug repositioning approaches are being used to predict the possible therapeutic scaffolds against different diseases. In the current study, computational drug repositioning approaches were employed to fetch the promising drugs from the pool of FDA-approved drugs against Ewing sarcoma. The binding interaction patterns and conformational behaviors of screened drugs within the active region of Ewing sarcoma protein (EWS) were confirmed through molecular docking profiles. Furthermore, pharmacogenomics analysis was employed to check the possible associations of selected drugs with Ewing sarcoma genes. Moreover, the stability behavior of selected docked complexes (drugs-EWS) was checked by molecular dynamics simulations. Taken together, astemizole, sulfinpyrazone, and pranlukast exhibited a result comparable to pazopanib and can be used as a possible therapeutic agent in the treatment of Ewing sarcoma.