ORIGINAL ARTICLE Potential mosquito repellent compounds of Ocimum species against 3N7H and 3Q8I of Anopheles gambiae

Abstract Mosquitoes are exceptionally efficient in detecting their hosts for blood meal using odorant binding proteins, viz. 3N7H and 3Q8I and spread several dreadful diseases.DEET is a syntheticmosquito repellentwidely used all over world for protection against mosquito bite. Reports reveal that, synthetic mosquito repellents may pose health problems in considerably large population. In view of the above fact, we made an attempt to discover efficient and novel natural mosquito repellent compounds with least impact on human health.Methanolic leaf extracts ofOcimum basilicum Linn. var. pilosum (willd.)-Benth and Ocimum tenuiflorum var. CIM-AYU were subjected to GC–MS analysis and obtained 35 phytochemical constituents. Repellent potentiality of the Ocimum compounds was assessed against 3Q8I and 3N7H of Anopheles gambiae. PDB structures of mosquito odorant binding proteins were downloaded, processed and docking studies were performed along with reference ligand DEET using Schrodinger MAESTRO 9.2 software. Molecular docking results reveal that phenol, 2-methoxy-3-(2-propenyl)-, licopersin, gamma sitosterol and benzene, 1,2-dimethoxy-4-(2-propenyl)- from O. tenuiflorum var. CIM-AYU are strongly bound wit