WALNUT PEDUNCULAGIN A PROBABLE SERM FOR BREAST CANCER TREATMENT

Walnuts constituents have been actively used in nutrition in slowing cancer growth by its anti-proliferative and anti-angiogenic mechanisms. Pedunculagin, a natural chemical constituent of walnut were performed to check for its binding with Estrogen Receptor (ER) receptor using Insilco approach. Most of current approach towards breast cancer therapies is aimed at blocking ER signaling pathway using various estrogen antagonists like synthetic estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) which down regulates the signaling cascade leading to tumor activity. This study is aimed to find the binding interactions between Pedunculagin and ER. Pedunculagin structure was extracted from CHEMSPIDER database and Estrogen Receptor (ER) 1QKN was selected, further ligand and receptor structures were minimized with steepest descent and conjugate gradient with minimized energy levels were found to be -14211.04235 Kcal/mol for ligand molecule and -12518.66882 Kcal/mol for ER. Six interacting binding sites were identified between ligand and ER and docking studies showed second active binding site of receptor showed strong affinity and interacting groups. Pedunculagin may act as SERM in modulating the ER signaling activity and may be a probable therapeutic molecule for treating breast cancer