B40 and SiB39 Fullerenes Enhance the Physicochemical Features of Curcumin and Effectively Improve Its Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-Cancer Activities

In this paper, density functional theory calculations have been employed to study the interaction of curcumin through β-diketone- and enol- forms with the borospherene molecule (B40) and its silicon-doped variant (SiB39) for application as a nanocarrier for designing a drug delivery system. The obtained results from binding energies analysis indicated that the enol form (state II: −1.32 eV) and β-diketone form (state III: −2.51 eV) of curcumin prefers a strong polar covalent B-O and Si-O bonds through carbonyl groups after the interaction with B40 and SiB39 fullerenes. The boron fullerene doped with silicon atom improves the adsorption of β-diketone form and has higher binding energy values and increased dipole moment. So, SiB39 fullerene is more sensitive to the presence of β-diketone (state III: 76.84 %) and enol form is (state IV: 93.68 %) compared to the B40 fullerene due to the alteration in energy gap. According to molecular docking analysis the β-diketone curcumin conjugated with SiB39 (state III) and B40 fullerenes (state I) revealed the best binding affinity with the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) receptor (-8.9 kcal/mol) and the cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) receptor (-8.8 kcal/mol). The anticancer activities of β-diketone curcumin conjugated B40 and SiB39 fullerenes improved in comparison with curumin towards Epidermal growth factor and Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 receptors. Molecular docking simulation analysis illustrated that the interaction of curcumin conjugated B40 and SiB39 fullerenes have great potential for the anticancer and anti-inflammatory activities in contrast to Curcumin. Thus, the molecular docking and density functional theory analysis confirm that curcumin decorated B40 and SiB39 fullerenes have significant potential to be explored further in cancer and inflammation treatments.