Crocin: A Potent Secondary Metabolite As BACE1 Inhibitor In Alzheimer’s Disease

The use of plants based secondary metabolites as BACE1 inhibitor in treating Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has long been discussed due to their great potential to cross the blood brain barrier (a tissue and blood artery network with small cells that act together to prevent dangerous substances from entering the brain.), longer bioavailability, longer serum half-life and least or no side-effect on human brain. AD is caused due to aggregation of amyloid β peptides in the brain. β secretase also called β site amyloid precursor protein cleaving enzyme 1(BACE1) is accountable for initiating the synthesis of pernicious amyloid β peptide important in the pathogenesis of the disease. BACE1 is an important target for the development of therapeutic modalities to reduce the concentration of amyloid β aggregates in the brain. The present study is focused on the active role of plants based secondary metabolites in the clearance of amyloid β peptides and their role as a BACE1 inhibitor. We have performed Molecular docking to investigate the binding energy of BACE1 and the inhibitor complex. The binding energy of Crocin was observed to be the most negative suggesting it to be one of the most suitable secondary metabolites as BACE1 inhibitor and thus its usage can be considered as an important step in preventing or delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.