Fidan, ÖzkanMujwar, Somdutt2024-07-032024-07-032024http://doi.org/10.17798/bitlisfen.1388403https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12573/2245This study focused on the discovery of new drug candidates effective against the monkeypox virus. Virtual screening was performed to evaluate the potential of chili pepper natural products against homology-modeled DNA-directed RNA polymerase of the monkeypox virus using molecular docking. Our findings revealed that structurally similar triterpenes such as α-amyrin, β-amyrin, and β-sitosterol had strong binding affinities towards the DNA-directed RNA polymerase and can inhibit this pivotal viral enzyme. The stability of one of the drug candidate molecules, α-amyrin with the strongest binding affinity towards the binding cavity of the enzyme was also confirmed via molecular dynamics simulation. This study showed that α-amyrin is a promising DNA-directed RNA polymerase inhibitor to treat monkeypox disease. It also paves the way for the idea of the potential dietary supplement candidate for monkeypox patients.enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessAntiviral agentsAlpha-amyrinChili pepperMonkeypox virusVirtual screeningarticle131277291