An Observational Study on the Mode of Action of Ferulic Acid on Common Dental Pathogens – An in Silico Approach

In this study, the functional and virulent classes of proteins that are targeted by ferulic acid are identified from the most common dental pathogens like Porphyromonas gingivalis, Treponema denticola, Tannerella forsythia, Streptococcus mutans and Enterococcus faecalis by an in silico approach. The target proteins were selected using STITCH tool, the functional class of proteins was predicted using VICMpred. The predicted virulent proteins were further subjected to BepiPred analysis, which returned the number of peptide epitopes present in the protein. Further, the subcellular location of the proteins was confirmed by the PSORTb tool. Ferulic acid was found to interact with virulence factors such as dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase of Streptococcus mutans, putative lipoprotein of P. gingivalis and phosphogluconate dehydrogenase of T. forsythia. The findings of the study emphasize the promising interactive role of ferulic acid and their potential protein targets in common oro-dental pathogens which requires further experimental validation in-vivo and in-vitro.