Structural Basis for the Activity of Drugs that Inhibit Phosphodiesterases.
Card, G.L., England, B.P., Suzuki, Y., Fong, D., Powell, B., Lee, B., Luu, C., Tabrizizad, M., Gillette, S., Ibrahim, P.N., Artis, D.R., Bollag, G., Milburn, M.V., Kim, S.-H., Schlessinger, J., Zhang, K.Y.J.(2004) Structure 12: 2233-2247
- PubMed: 15576036 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.str.2004.10.004
- PubMed Abstract: 
Phosphodiesterases (PDEs) comprise a large family of enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of cAMP or cGMP and are implicated in various diseases. We describe the high-resolution crystal structures of the catalytic domains of PDE4B, PDE4D, and PDE5A with ten different inhibitors, including the drug candidates cilomilast and roflumilast, for respiratory diseases. These cocrystal structures reveal a common scheme of inhibitor binding to the PDEs: (i) a hydrophobic clamp formed by highly conserved hydrophobic residues that sandwich the inhibitor in the active site; (ii) hydrogen bonding to an invariant glutamine that controls the orientation of inhibitor binding. A scaffold can be readily identified for any given inhibitor based on the formation of these two types of conserved interactions. These structural insights will enable the design of isoform-selective inhibitors with improved binding affinity and should facilitate the discovery of more potent and selective PDE inhibitors for the treatment of a variety of diseases.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Plexxikon, Inc., 91 Bolivar Drive, Berkeley, CA 94710, USA.