Molecular insight into the differential anti-androgenic activity of resveratrol and its natural analogs: in silico approach to understand biological actions

Abstract

The androgen receptor (AR) is a therapeutic target for the treatment of prostate cancer. Androgen receptor reactivation during the androgen-independent stage of prostate cancer is mediated by numerous mechanisms including expression of AR mutants and splice variants that become non-responsive to conventional anti-androgenic agents. Resveratrol and its natural analogs exhibit varying degrees of anti-androgenic effects on tumor growth suppression in prostate cancer. However, the structural basis for the observed differential activity remains unknown. Here, anti-androgenic activities of resveratrol and its natural analogs, namely, pterostilbene, piceatannol and trimethoxy-resveratrol were studied in LNCaP cells expressing T877A mutant AR and atomistic simulations were employed to establish the structure activity relationship. Interestingly, essential hydrogen bonding contacts and the binding energies of resveratrol analogs with AR ligand binding domain (LBD), emerge as key differentiating factors for varying anti-androgenic action. Among all the analogs, pterostilbene exhibited strongest anti-androgenic activity and its binding energy and hydrogen bonding interactions pattern closely resembled pure anti-androgen, flutamide. Principal component analysis of our simulation studies revealed that androgenic compounds bind more strongly to AR LBD compared to anti-androgenic compounds and provide conformational stabilization of the receptor in essential subspace. The present study provides critical insight into the structure–activity relationship of the anti-androgenic action of resveratrol analogs, which can be translated further to design novel highly potent anti-androgenic stilbenes.