Sulfonamide-Based Inhibitors of Biotin Protein Ligase as New Antibiotic Leads.
Lee, K.J., Tieu, W., Blanco-Rodriguez, B., Paparella, A.S., Yu, J., Hayes, A., Feng, J., Marshall, A.C., Noll, B., Milne, R., Cini, D., Wilce, M.C.J., Booker, G.W., Bruning, J.B., Polyak, S.W., Abell, A.D.(2019) ACS Chem Biol 14: 1990-1997
- PubMed: 31407891 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acschembio.9b00463
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
6NDL - PubMed Abstract: 
Here, we report the design, synthesis, and evaluation of a series of inhibitors of Staphylococcus aureus BPL ( Sa BPL), where the central acyl phosphate of the natural intermediate biotinyl-5'-AMP ( 1 ) is replaced by a sulfonamide isostere. Acylsulfamide ( 6 ) and amino sulfonylurea ( 7 ) showed potent in vitro inhibitory activity ( K i = 0.007 ± 0.003 and 0.065 ± 0.03 μM, respectively) and antibacterial activity against S. aureus ATCC49775 with minimum inhibitory concentrations of 0.25 and 4 μg/mL, respectively. Additionally, the bimolecular interactions between the BPL and inhibitors 6 and 7 were defined by X-ray crystallography and molecular dynamics simulations. The high acidity of the sulfonamide linkers of 6 and 7 likely contributes to the enhanced in vitro inhibitory activities by promoting interaction with Sa BPL Lys187. Analogues with alkylsulfamide ( 8 ), β-ketosulfonamide ( 9 ), and β-hydroxysulfonamide ( 10 ) isosteres were devoid of significant activity. Binding free energy estimation using computational methods suggests deprotonated 6 and 7 to be the best binders, which is consistent with enzyme assay results. Compound 6 was unstable in whole blood, leading to poor pharmacokinetics. Importantly, 7 has a vastly improved pharmacokinetic profile compared to that of 6 presumably due to the enhanced metabolic stability of the sulfonamide linker moiety.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Department of Chemistry, School of Physical Sciences , University of Adelaide , Adelaide , South Australia 5005 , Australia.