Computational approaches highlighting conotoxins as potential drug against breast and pancreatic cancer treatment

Abstract

Introduction: The two most common cancer-related causes of mortality, breast and pancreatic cancer, account for a significant portion of deaths worldwide. Our research included genomic and docking investigations using a variety of cancer illness datasets, for the identification of potential hub genes as target receptors. Based on literature reviews, we focused on conotoxins, a marine animal-derived substance secreted by cone snails, which serves as a ligand protein in the treatment of many disorders like cancer. Methods: The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset of NCBI was used to compile the information on breast and pancreatic cancer. In this study, two microarray datasets (GSE36775 and GSE113865) were evaluated and screened out significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that had P<0.05, using NCBI GEO2R. Furthermore, Cytoscape is used to examine the highly conserved genes across various cancer types. A protein-protein docking study was conducted using the H-Dock server. Results: Gene conservancy studies revealed that 963 genes in total were preserved in two significant cases. To identify their metabolic pathways, a system biology approach was used, and docking studies of receptor proteins against diverse conotoxins were also conducted. The two compounds with the highest docking scores are CCNB1 + conotoxinPVIIA (-257.64 Kcal/mol) and CDK1 + conotoxinGeXIVA (-246.66 Kcal/mol), respectively. Conclusion: In the fight against cancer, our study has shown that conotoxins-derived peptides have enormous promise for selectively targeting cancer cells. We concluded that animal-based compounds may unveil new areas of study for researchers.