1,4-Disubstituted imidazoles are potential antibacterial agents functioning as inhibitors of enoyl acyl carrier protein reductase (FabI)

1,4-Disubstituted imidazole inhibitors of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli enoyl acyl carrier protein reductase (FabI) have been identified. Crystal structure data shows the inhibitor 1 bound in the enzyme active site of E. coli FabI.

Automated assay optimization with integrated statistics and smart robotics

The transition from manual to robotic high throughput screening (HTS) in the last few years has made it feasible to screen hundreds of thousands of chemical entities against a biological target in less than a month. This rate of HTS has increased the visibility of bottlenecks, one of which is assay optimization. In many organizations, experimental methods are generated by therapeutic teams associated with specific targets and passed on to the HTS group. The resulting assays frequently need to be further optimized to withstand the rigors and time frames inherent in robotic handling. Issues such as protein aggregation, ligand instability, and cellular viability are common variables in the optimization process. The availability of robotics capable of performing rapid random access tasks has made it possible to design optimization experiments that would be either very difficult or impossible for a person to carry out. Our approach to reducing the assay optimization bottleneck has been to unify the highly specific fields of statistics, biochemistry, and robotics. The product of these endeavors is a process we have named automated assay optimization (AAO). This has enabled us to determine final optimized assay conditions, which are often a composite of variables that we would not have arrived at by examining each variable independently. We have applied this approach to both radioligand binding and enzymatic assays and have realized benefits in both time and performance that we would not have predicted a priori. The fully developed AAO process encompasses the ability to download information to a robot and have liquid handling methods automatically created. This evolution in smart robotics has proven to be an invaluable tool for maintaining high-quality data in the context of increasing HTS demands.

Potent and selective nonpeptide inhibitors of caspases 3 and 7 inhibit apoptosis and maintain cell functionality

Caspases have been strongly implicated to play an essential role in apoptosis. A critical question regarding the role(s) of these proteases is whether selective inhibition of an effector caspase(s) will prevent cell death. We have identified potent and selective non-peptide inhibitors of the effector caspases 3 and 7. The inhibition of apoptosis and maintenance of cell functionality with a caspase 3/7-selective inhibitor is demonstrated for the first time, and suggests that targeting these two caspases alone is sufficient for blocking apoptosis. Furthermore, an x-ray co-crystal structure of the complex between recombinant human caspase 3 and an isatin sulfonamide inhibitor has been solved to 2.8-A resolution. In contrast to previously reported peptide-based caspase inhibitors, the isatin sulfonamides derive their selectivity for caspases 3 and 7 by interacting primarily with the S(2) subsite, and do not bind in the caspase primary aspartic acid binding pocket (S(1)). These inhibitors blocked apoptosis in murine bone marrow neutrophils and human chondrocytes. Furthermore, in camptothecin-induced chondrocyte apoptosis, cell functionality as measured by type II collagen promoter activity is maintained, an activity considered essential for cartilage homeostasis. These data suggest that inhibiting chondrocyte cell death with a caspase 3/7-selective inhibitor may provide a novel therapeutic approach for the prevention and treatment of osteoarthritis, or other disease states characterized by excessive apoptosis.