Kojic Acid Effect on the Inhibitory Potency of Tyrosinase

In recent years, enzymatic activity of tyrosinase has been the focus of investigation due to its potential applications in medicine, agriculture and cosmetics. Tyrosinase, entitled poly-phenol oxidase, is a key enzyme that catalyzes synthesis of melanin in plants, microorganisms and mammalian cells. Presence of some antioxidants can delay or inhibit the activity of this enzyme as well. In this survey, molecular docking calculation method using Autodock 4.0 software for predic-tion of binding energy of the protein with some antioxidant ligands was executed. The pose with the lowest energy of binding or inhibition constant was extracted at 298.15 K for kojic acid. Num-ber of conformations in the cluster of rank was 13. The first and second boxes free energy and the inhibition constant were as follows: -5.60 kcalmol-1, 78.99 μM and -3.32 kcalmol-1, 3.66 μM, re-spectively. Since the first box presented a lower value of free energy, it was considered as the best mode of structure of kojic acid and the protein docking for further analysis. Thus, our present study could contribute to development and discernment of tyrosinase inhibitors in order to prevent hyper pigmentation.