Discovery of Monoamine Oxidase A Inhibitors Derived from in silico Docking

Although more than 20,000 papers concerning mono-amine oxidase (MAO) have been reported in PubMed since the 1950s, over 300 papers are still being published every year on this topic. This indicates the importance of MAO, which was discovered by Mary Hare-Bernheim in 1928.1 Two isoforms of MAO have been identified based on the selectivity to their substrates and inhibitors; they are called MAOA and MAOB. While the former shows a high affinity for serotonin and norepinephrine, the latter has a high affinity for β-phenylethylamine. Likewise, MAOA is selec-tively inhibited by clorgyline and MAOB by selegiline.2 MAOA and MAOB are encoded from different genes that are located in the human X chromosome.3 They are activated by different transcription factors;4 thus, the expressions of the two proteins are localized: the ratio of MAOA to MAO