Drug Self-Aggregation into Nano-Entities Has the Potential to Induce Immune Responses

Transforming Small-Molecule Nanoaggregation into Functional Drug Delivery Platforms

The development of stimuli-responsive nanoaggregates offers a transformative approach to cancer therapy, addressing the challenges of selectivity and efficacy. The spontaneous formation of nanoscale aggregates of small organic molecules through self-assembly is a major hurdle in early-stage drug discovery. However, this disadvantage can be transformed with a meticulous design into a functional drug delivery platform. Here, we report Nano-CC1-Acl, a nanoaggregate engineered for targeted anticancer activity. CC1 and CC1-Acl, benzimidazole derivatives, undergo self-assembly in aqueous environments to generate Nano-CC1 (235.2 ± 28.2 nm; IC50 > 100 μM) and Nano-CC1-Acl (110.6 ± 23.1 nm; IC50 = 2.88-3.40 μM) nanoaggregates. The IC50 value of Nano-CC1-Acl further decreases to 0.20 ± 0.16 μM in the presence of cysteine, a biothiol. Triggered by intracellular biothiols, Nano-CC1-Acl disassembles to release CC1, a potent microtubule-targeting agent that disrupts microtubule polymerization. Results presented here indicate that small molecule nanoaggregation can be utilized to develop functional drug delivery platforms.

NMR spectroscopy can help accelerate antiviral drug discovery programs

Small molecule drugs have an important role to play in combating viral infections, and biophysics support has been central for contributing to the discovery and design of direct acting antivirals. Perhaps one of the most successful biophysical tools for this purpose is NMR spectroscopy when utilized strategically and pragmatically within team workflows and timelines. This report describes some clear examples of how NMR applications contributed to the design of antivirals when combined with medicinal chemistry, biochemistry, X-ray crystallography and computational chemistry. Overall, these multidisciplinary approaches allowed teams to reveal and expose compound physical properties from which design ideas were spawned and tested to achieve the desired successes. Examples are discussed for the discovery of antivirals that target HCV, HIV and SARS-CoV-2.