As part of our effort to inhibit bacterial fatty acid biosynthesis through the recently validated target biotin carboxylase, we employed a unique combination of two emergent lead discovery strategies. We used both de novo fragment-based drug discovery and virtual screening, which employs 3D shape and electrostatic property similarity searching ...
As part of our effort to inhibit bacterial fatty acid biosynthesis through the recently validated target biotin carboxylase, we employed a unique combination of two emergent lead discovery strategies. We used both de novo fragment-based drug discovery and virtual screening, which employs 3D shape and electrostatic property similarity searching. We screened a collection of unbiased low-molecular-weight molecules and identified a structurally diverse collection of weak-binding but ligand-efficient fragments as potential building blocks for biotin carboxylase ATP-competitive inhibitors. Through iterative cycles of structure-based drug design relying on successive fragment costructures, we improved the potency of the initial hits by up to 3000-fold while maintaining their ligand-efficiency and desirable physicochemical properties. In one example, hit-expansion efforts resulted in a series of amino-oxazoles with antibacterial activity. These results successfully demonstrate that virtual screening approaches can substantially augment fragment-based screening approaches to identify novel antibacterial agents.
Organizational Affiliation:
Pfizer, Inc., Michigan Laboratories, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105, USA. Igor_Mochalkin@yahoo.com
Download Mendeley
