Enhanced antifungal activity of Piper betle against candidiasis infection causing Candida Albicans and In silico analysis with its virulent protein

Background: The widespread usage of synthetic chemical drugs often contributes to the development of drug resistance in the clinical pathogens along with hazardous side effects in the human side. Among those clinical pathogens, Candida albicans is a prime consideration to explore. C. albicans is wildly causing a fungal infection of oral cavity well known as candidiasis. This study is prompted to find some novel natural compounds from a medicinal plant, Piper betle against C. albicans. Methods: Bioactive compounds were extracted from the betel leaves using different solvents. The standard drug, fluconazole was used to check anticandidal activity of P. betle against C. albicans. Plant extracts were further characterized by the antioxidant and different scavenging assays. The biocompounds were identified using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and successfully subjected to molecular docking study. Results: Methanol and ethanol extracts were showed potential antifungal, antioxidant, and scavenging activity against C. albicans, in comparison with control drug. Twenty-seven bioactive compounds were identified in the methanol extract of P. betle. These active bioactive compounds were docked with candidapepsin-1, a proteolytic virulent enzyme of C. albicans and compared with a control drug, fluconazole (-7.8 kcal/mol), and the effective interaction was observed with specific bioactive compound, 4-hydroxy-5-imino-3,4-dimethyl-1-(4-nitrophenyl)-2-imidazolidinone (-7.5 kcal/mol). Conclusion: The present study reveals that methanol and ethanol extract of P. betle is a potential source of natural-free radical scavenging antioxidants. These findings will be great helpful in the new drug analysis for the determination of antimicrobial biocompounds against candidiasis and other clinically related infections.