Screening The Efficacy of Melatonin On Neurodegeneration Mediated By ER Stress, Inflammation And Oxidative Damage

Neurodegeneration may be defined as a clinical condition wherein neurons gradually lose their structural integrity, viability, functional abilities and the damage inflicted upon the neurons is often irreversible. The number of elderly patients suffering from Neurodegenerative disorders is expected to rise tremendously over the next couple of years. Thus, there is an urgent need to delve into and study the underlying cause and mechanisms, so that we may be able to develop more effective therapeutic strategies and drugs and better understand the origin and progression of the disease.The various mechanisms that have been observed to contribute to neurodegeneration include aggregation and accumulation of misfolded proteins, impaired autophagy, oxidative damage, neuroinflammation, mitochondrial defects, increased SUMOylation of proteins, impaired UPR pathways, disruption of axonal transport.Melatonin, a neurohormone is involved in a variety of functions including scavenging free radicals, synchronizing the circadian rhythm, mitigating immune response.Melatonin has shown to modulate the UPR pathway ,antioxidant pathway through Nrf2 and inflammatory pathway through NFκB. The study aims to determine the efficacy of melatonin on neurodegeneration mediated by ER stress, inflammation and oxidative damage through in silico approaches. The molecular targets chosen were ATF6, XBP1, PERK, Nrf2, NFκB and they were docked against melatonin. Additionally various physiochemical analysis such as ADME were also carried out to determine its drug ability. The findings were that melatonin not only shows excellent interactions with the targets but also possess drug-like physicochemical properties that makes it a valuable choice for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.