Flavonoids from subsp. with leishmanicidal activity: computational and experimental evidence.

subsp. is a valuable medicinal plant as its parts and extracts found application for treating diarrhea, fever, liver disorders, asthma, and inflammation. In this study, we report the leishmanicidal activity of sakuranetin, spinacetin, and patuletin extracted from . The tested compounds revealed a strong anti-leishmanial activity against showing IC values of 7.98 ± 0.16 µM, 9.23 ± 0.23 µM 11.09 ± 0.87 µM for sakuranetin, spinacetin, and patuletin, respectively. Moreover, to explore the potential mechanism(s) by which the compounds may act, computational docking studies were performed against dihydrofolate reductase and pteridine reductase, showing that the flavonoids could target these two key enzymes to exploit their leishmanicidal activity. In accordance with results, patuletin was highlighted as the most promising compound of the set, and binding energy values of -6.72 and -6.74 kcal/mol were computed for the two proteins, respectively.