There are over 600 million people worldwide covering Asian and Oceanic countries including India have the habit of chewing areca nut as masticator in different forms.
Arecoline (C(8)H(13)NO(2)) has been reported as one of the abundant constituents of areca nut. A good number of scientific publications have made
Arecoline responsible for
oral cancer. Based on observation from clinical situation in North East India, one of the most betel quid chewing region of the country, we suspected a link between consumption of areca nut and Cerebro
Vascular Disease like
stroke. Therefore, we considered
Low Density Lipoprotein (
LDL) receptor as target and
Arecoline as
ligand and studied
ligand -target interaction using computational tools. Also we considered
High Density Lipoprotein (
HDL) receptor as another target to see if
Arecoline has any binding potential with it over and above
LDL receptor. Docking result indicated that
Arecoline and
Cholesterol both, have affinity towards extracellular domain of Human
LDL receptor but affinity of
Arecoline is much higher (-12.3560.) than that of Cholesterol(-0.1810). Docking of
Arecoline and 1, 2-Hexyl-1-
cyclopentanone thiosemicarbazone (
thiosemicarbazone) with Bovine
HDL receptor showed that
Arecoline also has the potential (Score, -6.2690Kcal/Mol) to block
HDL receptor though its potential is less than that (score, -10.0509 Kcal/Mol) of control (
thiosemicarbazone). We, therefore, suggest that by inhibiting endocytosis of
LDL cholesterol because of blocking
LDL receptor function and also by preventing
LDL cholesterol uptake by liver from blood because of interference with
HDL receptor,
Arecoline may contribute to
atherosclerosis. The study therefore, indicates a positive correlation between chewing of betel quid and Cerebro
Vascular Disease.