Research Article In Silico Screening of Mutated K-Ras Inhibitors from Malaysian Typhonium flagelliforme for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Copyright © 2014 A. Fatima and H. F. Yee. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. K-ras is an oncogenic GTPase responsible for at least 15–25 % of all non-small cell lung cancer cases worldwide. Lung cancer of both types is increasing with an alarming rate due to smoking habits in Malaysia among men and women. Natural products always offer alternate treatment therapies that are safe and effective. Typhonium flagelliforme or Keladi Tikus is a local plant known to possess anticancer properties. The whole extract is considered more potent than individual constituents. Since K-ras is the key protein in lung cancer, our aim was to identify the constituents of the plant that could target the mutated K-ras. Using docking strategies, reported potentially active compounds of Typhonium flagelliforme were docked into the allosteric surface pockets and switch regions of the K-ras protein to identify possible inhibitors. The selected ligands were found to have a high binding affinity for the switch II and the interphase region of the ras-SOS binding surface. 1