Plant-derived Antimicrobial Peptides from Ocimum tenuiflorum against Streptococcus pneumoniae and its role in treating infections: In Silico Approach

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the growing global concerns that has resulted in the need for new and effective antimicrobials. A medicinal plant, Ocimum tenuiflorum is used to predict the potential antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) via computational (in silico) approach. The protein sequences of Ocimum tenuiflorum were searched using various bioinformatics tools to identify the peptide regions that are likely to have potential to become an antimicrobial peptide. The predicted peptide was also evaluated for physicochemical properties, structure and molecular docking to test the interaction of the peptide with the targeted bacteria i.e Streptococcus pneumonia. This study demonstrates that in silico approach is feasible for the low cost, high throughput screening of peptides before in vitro experimentation. The results indicate that the peptide from Ocimum tenuiflorum can be considered as a source of natural AMPs. It is better to check the antimicrobial activity of the peptides experimentally to check its effectiveness and application against multi-drug resistant pathogen.