Targeting of wnt signalling pathway by small bioactive molecules for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most occurring neurodegenerative disorder that destroys learning, memory, and thinking skills. Although the pathophysiology of the disease is least understood, the post-mortem brain of AD patients as well as animal models revealed the part of down regulated Wnt signalling in progression of the disease. The deficit in the Wnt signalling leads to the accumulation of amyloid beta peptides, phosphorylation of tau proteins, and synaptic dysfunctions, which are regarded as the major pathological features of AD. As the available drugs for AD are only able to mitigate the symptoms and are also associated with several side effects, the therapeutic potential of the bioactive compounds is being explored for their efficacies in managing the major pathologies. Consequently, a few bioactive compounds fundamentally isolated from species are established as promising neuroprotective agents in AD, however; their potential to regulate the Wnt signalling pathway is yet to be discovered. Considering the neuroprotective properties, in the present study efficiency of six small bioactive compounds viz., amentoflavone, isovitexin, orientin, apigenin, kaempferol, and garcinol have been investigated in modulating the receptor proteins (LRP6, DKK1, WIF1 and GSK3β) of the Wnt signalling pathway by molecular docking technique. While all the bioactive compounds could efficiently interact with the target proteins, amentoflavone, orientin, and isovitexin interact with all the target proteins viz., LRP6, DKK1, WIF1, and GSK3β with higher free energy of binding, more number of interactions, and similar mode of binding in comparison to their known or reported modulators. Thus, the present study set forth the investigated small bioactive molecules as potential drug candidates in AD therapeutics.