Diversity-Oriented Synthesis of Diol-Based Peptidomimetics as Potential HIV Protease Inhibitors and Antitumor Agents

Therapeutic potential of HIV-1 entry inhibitor peptidomimetics

Human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) infection remains a public health concern globally. Although great strides in the management of HIV-1 have been achieved, current highly active antiretroviral therapy is limited by multidrug resistance, prolonged use-related effects, and inability to purge the HIV-1 latent pool. Even though novel therapeutic options with HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are being explored, the scalability of bNAbs is limited by economic cost of production and obligatory requirement for parenteral administration. However, these limitations can be addressed by antibody mimetics/peptidomimetics of HIV-1 bNAbs. In this review we discuss the limitations of HIV-1 bNAbs as HIV-1 entry inhibitors and explore the potential therapeutic use of antibody mimetics/peptidomimetics of HIV-1 entry inhibitors as an alternative for HIV-1 bNAbs. We highlight the reduced cost of production, high specificity, and oral bioavailability of peptidomimetics compared to bNAbs to demonstrate their suitability as candidates for novel HIV-1 therapy and conclude with some perspectives on future research toward HIV-1 novel drug discovery.

Versatility of glycals in synthetic organic chemistry: coupling reactions, diversity oriented synthesis and natural product synthesis

Glycals, 1,2-unsaturated sugar derivatives, are versatile starting materials for the synthesis of natural products and the generation of novel structural features in Diversity Oriented Synthesis (DOS). The versatility of glycals in synthesis emanates, among others, from the presence of the ring oxygen and the enol-ether type unsaturation, the different types of stable conformations they can adopt depending on the nature of the protecting groups present and the ease with which the protecting groups of the three hydroxy groups could be tailored to suite for a desired manipulation. This review summarizes the literature on the different transformations of the endo glycals into biologically relevant compounds such as chromans, thiochromans, chromenes, thiochromenes, peptidomimetics, bridged benzopyrans etc., as well as on the use of glycals as chiral building blocks for the synthesis of various natural products such as aspicilin, reblastatin, diospongins, decytospolides, osmundalactones, paclitaxel, isatisine, d-fagomine, and spliceostatin, reported post 2014.