β-Galactosidase – Excipients Interaction by Docking Simulation Studies

Recently biopharmaceuticals have been showing a great number of investments. β- Galactosidase is an example of this increasing market, since this is an enzyme that can be used for those who are intolerant to lactose and are not able to eat or drink milk and dairy products. The main difficulty of working with enzymes is that it can lost its activity very easily, so pre-formulation tests have to be ran in order to define the suitable excipients for a formulation that will not degrade the Active Principal Ingredient (API). Computational methods such as molecular docking have been used to conduct these pre-formulation tests and then pedict the energy of interactions between protein and excipient, which are the best substances to be used on a pharmaceutical formulation. Seven excipients were divided into groups and tested using protocols of simulation that could predict the final energy found after all the interactions present in the excipients-enzyme binding, what represents a faster and easier approach for the development of a pharmaceutical since a range of excipients are pre-selected while others are excluded with only a single set.