Development of venetoclax performance using its new derivatives on BCL-2 protein inhibition

Cancer cells are resistant to apoptosis and this is one of the most obvious symptoms of cancer in humans. One of the most exciting strategies for treating cancer is to design regulators that increase cell death and stop cell growth. Members of the BCL-2 family of proteins play an important role in the regulation of apoptosis. In this study, an attempt was made to improve the performance of one of the anticancer drugs by designing new analogs of venetoclax (VNT). For this purpose, molecular docking studies were performed to determine the best binding state of VNT and its newly designed derivatives at the protein-binding site to estimate the binding energy. The best analog in terms of free energy was VNT-12 with the lowest energy (-12.15 kcal/mol). Finally, to investigate the inhibitory effect of the compounds on BCL-2 protein, molecular dynamics simulation was used, and by performing the relevant analyses during the simulation, it was observed that the newly designed ligand had better performance in inhibiting BCL-2 protein compared to VNT.