Computational assessment of curcumin as a multi-target anti-inflammatory agent in patellar tendinopathy

Patellar tendinopathy is a chronic overuse injury due to repetitive stress on the patellar tendon. To investigate the efficacy of curcumin therapy for the management of knee tendinopathy. Curcumin (CID: 969516) was tested against inflammatory biomarkers NF-kB, Cox-2, IL-6, MMPs, NF-Kb, TGF-B1 and TNF- alpha (AutoDock Vina through the PyRx 0.8). Drug release kinetic (Graphpad Prism 8), pharmacokinetic (ADMET) and toxicological studies were also conducted using admetSAR 3.0 server. Molecular docking analysis revealed that NF-kB (-6.3), Cox-2 (-8.5), IL-6 (-7.1), MMPs (-6.8), NF-Kb (-6.3), TGF-B1 (-5.7), and TNF- alpha (-5.8). Curcumin showed high intestinal absorption 0.933, good volume of distribution (Vd) − 0.29 with low blood brain barrier (BBB) penetration value 0.468 with slightly high plasma protein (PPB) binding 1.04, showed good metabolic profile having maximum likeliness with CYP1A2 with plasma clearance (CLp) 90.4%, renal clearance (CLr) 55.1%, half-life (T1/2) 79.07%, Mean residence time (MRT) 70. 67%. Drug release kinetic study follows Korsmeyer–Peppas model with highest R² = 0.97. The results support new drug preparation for the treatment of inflammatory disorders like patellar tendinopathy.