Anthelmintic activity of Piper sylvaticum Roxb. (family: Piperaceae): In vitro and in silico studies

Background The present study was conducted to investigate the anthelmintic activity of methanol extract of Piper sylvaticum stem (MEPSS) in experimental model followed by in silico molecular docking study and ADME/T analysis. Methods Anthelmintic activity was determined by an aquarium worm ( Tubifex tubifex ). Then, molecular docking study was performed to identify compounds having maximum activity against TUBULIN-COLCHICINE enzymes by using Schrödinger-Maestro v 10.1 docking fitness. Additionally, ADME/T profiles were checked by Swiss ADME Analysis and Molinspiration Cheminformatics software. Results A preliminary phytochemical analysis of MEPSS revealed that it contained alkaloids, carbohydrates, flavonoids, tannins, and saponins. MEPSS exhibited a dose-dependent and statistically significant anthelmintic activity on aquarium worm ( Tubifex tubifex ).The best concentration of MEPSS for anthelmintic activity on Tubifex tubifex compare with reference standard Levamisole (1 mg/mL) is 11.90 mg/mL. On the other hand, our molecular docking study shows that piperine has the best fitness score of − 6.22 kcal/mol with TUBULIN-COLCHICINE enzyme among three major compounds of Piper sylvaticum. Moreover, predicted properties of all compounds were in the range to satisfy the Lipinski’s rule of five to be recognized as drug like potential. Conclusion Results of the present study confirmed potential anthelmintic activity of Piper sylvaticum stem extract and all compounds were found to be effective in computer aided drug design models.