An antiviral drug combinational studies against hiv- a computational drug repositioning approach

This study was aimed at identifying two promising generic drugs and conduct an antiviral drug combination studies against HIV. It has two components; computational and in-vitro studies. The computational study entails sequential screening of all FDA approved drugs (1491) against three protein targets; through structural- and ligand- based pharmacophore screening followed by molecular docking of the selected drugs against the viral targets. Two (2) drugs with the best binding affinities against the viral targets were chosen for an in-vitro confirmation of activity. The non-toxic concentrations used for the study were established from MTT cytotoxicity study using Cmax of the drugs as a guide. Iodixanol and sirolismus had the highest binding affinities against the three protein targets. In the antiviral drug combination studies, synergism (CI<1) were demonstrated at the three graded concentrations.