Enzyme-Site Blocking Combined with Optimization of Molecular Docking for Efficient Discovery of Potential Tyrosinase Specific Inhibitors from Puerariae lobatae Radix

Enzyme inhibitors from natural products are becoming an attractive target for drug discovery and development; however, separating enzyme inhibitors from natural-product extracts is highly complex. In this study, we developed a strategy based on tyrosinase-site blocking ultrafiltration integrated with HPLC-QTOF-MS/MS and optimized molecular docking to screen tyrosinase inhibitors from Puerariae lobatae Radix extract. Under optimized ultrafiltration parameters, we previously used kojic acid, a known tyrosinase inhibitor, to block the tyrosinase active site in order to eliminate false-positive results. Using this strategy, puerarin, mirificin, daidzin and genistinc were successfully identified as potential ligands, and after systematic evaluation by several docking programs, the rank of the identified compounds predicted by computational docking was puerarin > mirificin > kojic acid > daidzin ≈ genistin, which agreed with the results of tyrosinase-inhibition assays. Structure-activity relationships indicated that C-glycosides showed better tyrosinase inhibition as compared with O-glycosides, with reduced inhibition achieved through the addition of glycosyl, which provides ideas about the screen of leading compounds and structural modification