Download MendeleyPocket-to-Lead: Structure-Based De Novo Design of Novel Non-peptidic HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors Using the Ligand Binding Pocket as a Template.
Kojima, E., Iimuro, A., Nakajima, M., Kinuta, H., Asada, N., Sako, Y., Nakata, Z., Uemura, K., Arita, S., Miki, S., Wakasa-Morimoto, C., Tachibana, Y.(2022) J Med Chem 65: 6157-6170
- PubMed: 35416651
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.1c02217
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:
7WBS, 7WCQ - PubMed Abstract:
A novel strategy for lead identification that we have dubbed the "Pocket-to-Lead" strategy is demonstrated using HIV-1 protease as a model target. Sometimes, it is difficult to obtain hit compounds because of the difficulties in satisfying the complex pharmacophoric features. In this study, a virtual fragment hit which does not match all of the pharmacophore features but has key interactions and vectors that could grow into remaining pharmacophore features was optimized in silico . The designed compound 9 demonstrated weak but evident inhibitory activity (IC 50 = 54 μM), and the design concept was proven by the co-crystal structure. Then, structure-based drug design promptly gave compound 14 (IC 50 = 0.0071 μM, EC 50 = 0.86 μM), an almost 10,000-fold improvement in activity from 9 . The structure of the designed molecules proved to be novel with high synthetic feasibility, indicating the usefulness of this strategy to tackle tough targets with complex pharmacophore.
Organizational Affiliation:
Shionogi Pharmaceutical Research Center, 3-1-1 Futaba-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka 561-0825, Japan.
