Hoslundia opposita and other Nigerian plants inhibit sickle hemoglobin polymerization and prevent erythrocyte sickling: a virtual screening-guided identification of bioactive plants

In sickle cell disease, a hereditary hemoglobinopathy, clinically observed disease presentations are the endpoint of a point mutation involving the substitution of glutamic acid with valine at the position 6 of the beta globin chain. With about 4.4 million people globally being affected, and another 43 million people bearing the sickle cell trait, several research efforts have been made to discover new and affordable treatment and possibly cure for the disease. Africa is endowed with a large flora population and traditional healers and citizens have over time depended on the use of herbs in folkloric medicine for different ailments including sickle cell disease (SCD). Such native knowledge has often formed the basis for different research exploration into the anti-sickling activities of selected African plants. These plants that have been so far investigated for their anti-sickling properties represent about 0.05 % of the 45,000 plant species enriching the flora landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some of these have yielded potent anti-sickling profiles. In the current work we seek to achieve a more extensive search of the African plant diversity with anti-sickling properties: for this we have adopted a hybrid computational-cum-experimental protocol that employed computer-aided drug design (CADD) means for identifying plants with at least one constituent capable of interacting with the sickle hemoglobin, followed by extractive procedures and anti-sickling experiments for validating the predictions. Over two thousand (or 2,000) African natural products, representing over 200 plant species, were first virtually screened against the crystal structure of the dimerized human sickle hemoglobin. The natural products with the best computed sickle hemoglobin interaction energetics were found to belong to five plant species including Catharanthus roseus, Rauvolfia vomitoria, Hoslundia opposita, Lantana camara and Euphorbia hirta . The leaves of these plants were each collected subsequently and subjected to standard processing and extraction procedures. Using both HbSS polymerization inhibition and sickling reversal tests significant reductions in polymerization of erythrocyte hemolysate of the HbSS genotype were observed with the methanolic extracts of the plants, as well as sickling reversal levels of up to 68.50 % ( H. opposita ) was observed. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.