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Kim J, Im CG, Oh K, Lee JM, Al-Rubaye F, Min KH. Discovery of novel FGFR4 inhibitors through a build-up fragment strategy. J Enzyme Inhib Med Chem 2024; 39:2343350. [PMID: 38655602 DOI: 10.1080/14756366.2024.2343350] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2023] [Accepted: 04/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death. FGFR4 has been implicated in HCC progression, making it a promising therapeutic target. We introduce an approach for identifying novel FGFR4 inhibitors by sequentially adding fragments to a common warhead unit. This strategy resulted in the discovery of a potent inhibitor, 4c, with an IC50 of 33 nM and high selectivity among members of the FGFR family. Although further optimisation is required, our approach demonstrated the potential for discovering potent FGFR4 inhibitors for HCC treatment, and provides a useful method for obtaining hit compounds from small fragments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jihyung Kim
- College of Pharmacy, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- Department of Global Innovative Drugs, Graduate School of Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Chang Gyun Im
- College of Pharmacy, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- Department of Global Innovative Drugs, Graduate School of Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Kyujin Oh
- College of Pharmacy, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Ji Min Lee
- College of Pharmacy, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- Department of Global Innovative Drugs, Graduate School of Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Fatimah Al-Rubaye
- College of Pharmacy, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- Department of Global Innovative Drugs, Graduate School of Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Kyung Hoon Min
- College of Pharmacy, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- Department of Global Innovative Drugs, Graduate School of Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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2
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Wu YC, Lai HX, Li JM, Fung KM, Tseng TS. Discovery of a potent inhibitor, D-132, targeting AsfvPolX, via protein-DNA complex-guided pharmacophore screening and in vitro molecular characterizations. Virus Res 2024; 344:199359. [PMID: 38521505 PMCID: PMC10995865 DOI: 10.1016/j.virusres.2024.199359] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2024] [Revised: 03/15/2024] [Accepted: 03/17/2024] [Indexed: 03/25/2024]
Abstract
The heightened transmissibility and capacity of African swine fever virus (ASFV) induce fatal diseases in domestic pigs and wild boars, posing significant economic repercussions and global threats. Despite extensive research efforts, the development of potent vaccines or treatments for ASFV remains a persistent challenge. Recently, inhibiting the AsfvPolX, a key DNA repair enzyme, emerges as a feasible strategy to disrupt viral replication and control ASFV infections. In this study, a comprehensive approach involving pharmacophore-based inhibitor screening, coupled with biochemical and biophysical analyses, were implemented to identify, characterize, and validate potential inhibitors targeting AsfvPolX. The constructed pharmacophore model, Phar-PolX-S, demonstrated efficacy in identifying a potent inhibitor, D-132 (IC50 = 2.8 ± 0.2 µM), disrupting the formation of the AsfvPolX-DNA complex. Notably, D-132 exhibited strong binding to AsfvPolX (KD = 6.9 ± 2.2 µM) through a slow-on-fast-off binding mechanism. Employing molecular modeling, it was elucidated that D-132 predominantly binds in-between the palm and finger domains of AsfvPolX, with crucial residues (R42, N48, Q98, E100, F102, and F116) identified as hotspots for structure-based inhibitor optimization. Distinctively characterized by a 1,2,5,6-tetrathiocane with modifications at the 3 and 8 positions involving ethanesulfonates, D-132 holds considerable promise as a lead compound for the development of innovative agents to combat ASFV infections.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi-Chen Wu
- Institute of Molecular Biology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 40202, Taiwan
| | - Hui-Xiang Lai
- Institute of Molecular Biology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 40202, Taiwan
| | - Ji-Min Li
- Institute of Precision Medicine, College of Medicine, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, 80424, Taiwan; Center of Excellence for Metabolic Associated Fatty Liver Disease, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, 80424, Taiwan
| | - Kit-Man Fung
- Biomedical Translation Research Center (BioTReC), Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan
| | - Tien-Sheng Tseng
- Institute of Molecular Biology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 40202, Taiwan.
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3
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Chuntakaruk H, Boonpalit K, Kinchagawat J, Nakarin F, Khotavivattana T, Aonbangkhen C, Shigeta Y, Hengphasatporn K, Nutanong S, Rungrotmongkol T, Hannongbua S. Machine learning-guided design of potent darunavir analogs targeting HIV-1 proteases: A computational approach for antiretroviral drug discovery. J Comput Chem 2024; 45:953-968. [PMID: 38174739 DOI: 10.1002/jcc.27298] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2023] [Revised: 11/30/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024]
Abstract
In the pursuit of novel antiretroviral therapies for human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) proteases (PRs), recent improvements in drug discovery have embraced machine learning (ML) techniques to guide the design process. This study employs ensemble learning models to identify crucial substructures as significant features for drug development. Using molecular docking techniques, a collection of 160 darunavir (DRV) analogs was designed based on these key substructures and subsequently screened using molecular docking techniques. Chemical structures with high fitness scores were selected, combined, and one-dimensional (1D) screening based on beyond Lipinski's rule of five (bRo5) and ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) prediction implemented in the Combined Analog generator Tool (CAT) program. A total of 473 screened analogs were subjected to docking analysis through convolutional neural networks scoring function against both the wild-type (WT) and 12 major mutated PRs. DRV analogs with negative changes in binding free energy (ΔΔ G bind ) compared to DRV could be categorized into four attractive groups based on their interactions with the majority of vital PRs. The analysis of interaction profiles revealed that potent designed analogs, targeting both WT and mutant PRs, exhibited interactions with common key amino acid residues. This observation further confirms that the ML model-guided approach effectively identified the substructures that play a crucial role in potent analogs. It is expected to function as a powerful computational tool, offering valuable guidance in the identification of chemical substructures for synthesis and subsequent experimental testing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hathaichanok Chuntakaruk
- Program in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
- Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Center of Excellence in Structural and Computational Biology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
| | - Kajjana Boonpalit
- School of Information Science and Technology, Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), Rayong, Thailand
| | - Jiramet Kinchagawat
- School of Information Science and Technology, Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), Rayong, Thailand
| | - Fahsai Nakarin
- School of Information Science and Technology, Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), Rayong, Thailand
| | - Tanatorn Khotavivattana
- Center of Excellence in Natural Products Chemistry (CENP), Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
| | - Chanat Aonbangkhen
- Center of Excellence in Natural Products Chemistry (CENP), Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
| | - Yasuteru Shigeta
- Center for Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
| | | | - Sarana Nutanong
- School of Information Science and Technology, Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), Rayong, Thailand
| | - Thanyada Rungrotmongkol
- Program in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
- Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Center of Excellence in Structural and Computational Biology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
| | - Supot Hannongbua
- Program in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
- Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Center of Excellence in Computational Chemistry (CECC), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
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4
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Qiu X, Wang H, Tan X, Fang Z. G-K BertDTA: A graph representation learning and semantic embedding-based framework for drug-target affinity prediction. Comput Biol Med 2024; 173:108376. [PMID: 38552281 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2024.108376] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2023] [Revised: 03/21/2024] [Accepted: 03/24/2024] [Indexed: 04/17/2024]
Abstract
Developing new drugs is costly, time-consuming, and risky. Drug-target affinity (DTA), indicating the binding capability between drugs and target proteins, is a crucial indicator for drug development. Accurately predicting interaction strength between new drug-target pairs by analyzing previous experiments aids in screening potential drug molecules, repurposing them, and developing safe and effective medicines. Existing computational models for DTA prediction rely on strings or single-graph neural networks, lacking consideration of protein structure and molecular semantic information, leading to limited accuracy. Our experiments demonstrate that string-based methods may overlook protein conformations, causing a high root mean square error (RMSE) of 3.584 in affinity due to a lack of spatial context. Single graph networks also underperform on topology features, with a 6% lower confidence interval (CI) for activity classification. Absent semantic information also limits generalization across diverse compounds, resulting in 18% increment in RMSE and 5% in misclassifications within quantifications study, restricting potential drug discovery. To address these limitations, we propose G-K BertDTA, a novel framework for accurate DTA prediction incorporating protein features, molecular semantic features, and molecular structural information. In this proposed model, we represent drugs as graphs, with a GIN employed to learn the molecular topological information. For the extraction of protein structural features, we utilize a DenseNet architecture. A knowledge-based BERT semantic model is incorporated to obtain rich pre-trained semantic embeddings, thereby enhancing the feature information. We extensively evaluated our proposed approach on the publicly available benchmark datasets (i.e., KIBA and Davis), and experimental results demonstrate the promising performance of our method, which consistently outperforms previous state-of-the-art approaches. Code is available at https://github.com/AmbitYuki/G-K-BertDTA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xihe Qiu
- School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, China
| | - Haoyu Wang
- School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, China
| | - Xiaoyu Tan
- INF Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China
| | - Zhijun Fang
- School of Computer Science and Technology, Donghua University, Shanghai, China.
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5
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Byadi S, Abdoullah B, Fawzi M, Irrou E, Ait Elmachkouri Y, Oubella A, Auhmani A, Morjani H, Labd Taha M, Robert A, Aboulmouhajir A, Ait Itto MY. Discovery of a new Bcl-2 inhibitor through synthesis, anticancer activity, docking and MD simulations. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2024; 42:4145-4154. [PMID: 37255018 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2023.2218934] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2023] [Accepted: 05/22/2023] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
A database of 300 compounds was virtually screened and docked against Bcl-2 protein; the stability of the best-formed complex was evaluated through Molecular dynamics, the top ten compounds with the best in-silico complexation affinities were synthesized, and their In-vitro cytotoxic activity was examined. Thiazolidinone (4e) and isoxazoline (4a-d) were evaluated in-silico. For further evaluation and examination, we designed and synthesized from naturally occurring (R)-carvone and characterized it via spectroscopic analysis, as well as tested for their anticancer activities towards human cancer cell lines such as HT-1080 (fibrosarcome cancer), MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 (breast cancer) and A-549 (lung cancer) by using MTT method with Doxorubicin as standard drug. Among them, compound 4d showed the most promising anticancer activity against HT-1080, A-549, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-231 cell lines with IC50 values of 15.59 ± 3.21 µM; 18.32 ± 2.73 µM; 17.28 ± 0.33 µM and 19.27 ± 2.73 µM respectively.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Said Byadi
- Team of Photochemistry, Synthesis, Hemisynthesis, Spectroscopy and Chemoinformatics, Laboratory of Organic Synthesis, Extraction and Valorization, Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco
| | - Bimoussa Abdoullah
- Département de Chimie, Faculté des Sciences, Laboratoire de Synthèse Organique et Physico-Chimie Moléculaire, Marrakech, Morocco
| | - Mourad Fawzi
- Département de Chimie, Faculté des Sciences, Laboratoire de Synthèse Organique et Physico-Chimie Moléculaire, Marrakech, Morocco
| | - Ezaddine Irrou
- Laboratory of Organic and Physical Chemistry, Applied Bioorganic Chemistry Team, Faculty of Sciences, IBNOU ZOHR University, Agadir, Morocco
| | - Younesse Ait Elmachkouri
- Laboratory of Organic and Physical Chemistry, Applied Bioorganic Chemistry Team, Faculty of Sciences, IBNOU ZOHR University, Agadir, Morocco
| | - Ali Oubella
- Département de Chimie, Faculté des Sciences, Laboratoire de Synthèse Organique et Physico-Chimie Moléculaire, Marrakech, Morocco
- Laboratory of Organic and Physical Chemistry, Applied Bioorganic Chemistry Team, Faculty of Sciences, IBNOU ZOHR University, Agadir, Morocco
| | - Aziz Auhmani
- Département de Chimie, Faculté des Sciences, Laboratoire de Synthèse Organique et Physico-Chimie Moléculaire, Marrakech, Morocco
| | - Hamid Morjani
- BioSpectroscopie Translationnelle, BioSpecT - EA7506, UFR de Pharmacie, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Reims Cedex, France
| | - Mohamed Labd Taha
- Laboratory of Organic and Physical Chemistry, Applied Bioorganic Chemistry Team, Faculty of Sciences, IBNOU ZOHR University, Agadir, Morocco
| | - Anthony Robert
- Equipe MSO, CNRS UMR 7312 Institut de Chimie Moléculaire Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, REIMS Cédex 2, France
| | - Aziz Aboulmouhajir
- Team of Photochemistry, Synthesis, Hemisynthesis, Spectroscopy and Chemoinformatics, Laboratory of Organic Synthesis, Extraction and Valorization, Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco
| | - Moulay Youssef Ait Itto
- Département de Chimie, Faculté des Sciences, Laboratoire de Synthèse Organique et Physico-Chimie Moléculaire, Marrakech, Morocco
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6
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Liang KX. The application of brain organoid for drug discovery in mitochondrial diseases. Int J Biochem Cell Biol 2024; 170:106556. [PMID: 38423381 DOI: 10.1016/j.biocel.2024.106556] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2023] [Revised: 02/26/2024] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 03/02/2024]
Abstract
Mitochondrial diseases are difficult to treat due to the complexity and multifaceted nature of mitochondrial dysfunction. Brain organoids are three-dimensional (3D) structures derived from human pluripotent stem cells designed to mimic brain-like development and function. Brain organoids have received a lot of attention in recent years as powerful tools for modeling human diseases, brain development, and drug screening. Screening compounds for mitochondrial diseases using brain organoids could provide a more physiologically relevant platform for drug discovery. Brain organoids offer the possibility of personalized medicine because they can be derived from patient-specific cells, allowing testing of drugs tailored to specific genetic mutations. In this article, we highlight how brain organoids offer a promising avenue for screening compounds for mitochondrial diseases and address the challenges and limitations associated with their use. We hope this review will provide new insights into the further progress of brain organoids for mitochondrial screening studies.
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7
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Alshubramy MA, Alotaibi FS, Alkahtani HM, Alamry KA, Hussein MA. C3-Symmetric ligands in drug design: An overview of the challenges and opportunities ahead. Bioorg Med Chem Lett 2024; 103:129702. [PMID: 38490620 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmcl.2024.129702] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2024] [Revised: 02/10/2024] [Accepted: 03/12/2024] [Indexed: 03/17/2024]
Abstract
C3-symmetry is a type of star-shaped molecule consisting of a central core and three symmetrically attached chains. These molecules are used in drug discovery due to their unique three-fold rotational symmetry, which allows for specific binding interactions and improved molecular recognition. In this text, we provide an overview of synthetic approaches with C3-symmetry as a pharmaceutical tool: progress, challenges, and opportunities. C3-symmetric ligands offer both challenges and opportunities in drug design. Their unique symmetry can enhance binding interactions, but careful consideration of rigidity, synthetic complexity, and target compatibility is crucial. Further research and advancements in synthetic methods and modeling tools will likely drive their exploration in drug discovery, leading to the discovery of potent C3-symmetric ligands.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maha A Alshubramy
- Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
| | - Faez S Alotaibi
- Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Qassim University Buraidah 51452, Saudi Arabia
| | - Hamad M Alkahtani
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2457, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
| | - Khalid A Alamry
- Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
| | - Mahmoud A Hussein
- Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia; Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut 71516, Egypt.
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8
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Khananshvili D. Newly uncovered Cryo-EM structures of mammalian NCXs set a new stage for resolving the underlying molecular mechanisms and drug discovery. Cell Calcium 2024; 119:102867. [PMID: 38422779 DOI: 10.1016/j.ceca.2024.102867] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2024] [Accepted: 02/24/2024] [Indexed: 03/02/2024]
Abstract
The membrane-abundant NCX proteins mediate an electrogenic ion exchange (3Na+:1Ca2+) in the Ca2+-exit or Ca2+-entry mode. The structurally related isoform/splice variants of NCX are expressed in a tissue-specific manner to shape Ca2+ signalling/homeostasis in diverse cell types. The lack of mammalian NCX structure hampered the functional and regulatory resolution of tissue-specific NCX variants and their pharmacological targeting. Recently unveiled Cryo-EM structures of human cardiac NCX1.1[1] and kidney NCX1.3[2] provide new opportunities for resolving structure/functional divergences among NCX variants and their pharmacological targeting.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Khananshvili
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
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9
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Lu L, Li J, Jiang X, Bai R. CXCR4/CXCL12 axis: "old" pathway as "novel" target for anti-inflammatory drug discovery. Med Res Rev 2024; 44:1189-1220. [PMID: 38178560 DOI: 10.1002/med.22011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2023] [Revised: 11/25/2023] [Accepted: 12/16/2023] [Indexed: 01/06/2024]
Abstract
Inflammation is the body's defense response to exogenous or endogenous stimuli, involving complex regulatory mechanisms. Discovering anti-inflammatory drugs with both effectiveness and long-term use safety is still the direction of researchers' efforts. The inflammatory pathway was initially identified to be involved in tumor metastasis and HIV infection. However, research in recent years has proved that the CXC chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4)/CXC motif chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12) axis plays a critical role in the upstream of the inflammatory pathway due to its chemotaxis to inflammatory cells. Blocking the chemotaxis of inflammatory cells by CXCL12 at the inflammatory site may block and alleviate the inflammatory response. Therefore, developing CXCR4 antagonists has become a novel strategy for anti-inflammatory therapy. This review aimed to systematically summarize and analyze the mechanisms of action of the CXCR4/CXCL12 axis in more than 20 inflammatory diseases, highlighting its crucial role in inflammation. Additionally, the anti-inflammatory activities of CXCR4 antagonists were discussed. The findings might help generate new perspectives for developing anti-inflammatory drugs targeting the CXCR4/CXCL12 axis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liuxin Lu
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
- Key Laboratory of Elemene Class Anti-tumor Chinese Medicines, Engineering Laboratory of Development and Application of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Collaborative Innovation Center of Traditional Chinese Medicines of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
| | - Junjie Li
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
- Key Laboratory of Elemene Class Anti-tumor Chinese Medicines, Engineering Laboratory of Development and Application of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Collaborative Innovation Center of Traditional Chinese Medicines of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
| | - Xiaoying Jiang
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
- Key Laboratory of Elemene Class Anti-tumor Chinese Medicines, Engineering Laboratory of Development and Application of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Collaborative Innovation Center of Traditional Chinese Medicines of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
| | - Renren Bai
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
- Key Laboratory of Elemene Class Anti-tumor Chinese Medicines, Engineering Laboratory of Development and Application of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Collaborative Innovation Center of Traditional Chinese Medicines of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
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10
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Khalikova M, Jireš J, Horáček O, Douša M, Kučera R, Nováková L. What is the role of current mass spectrometry in pharmaceutical analysis? Mass Spectrom Rev 2024; 43:560-609. [PMID: 37503656 DOI: 10.1002/mas.21858] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2022] [Revised: 06/02/2023] [Accepted: 06/25/2023] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
The role of mass spectrometry (MS) has become more important in most application domains in recent years. Pharmaceutical analysis is specific due to its stringent regulation procedures, the need for good laboratory/manufacturing practices, and a large number of routine quality control analyses to be carried out. The role of MS is, therefore, very different throughout the whole drug development cycle. While it dominates within the drug discovery and development phase, in routine quality control, the role of MS is minor and indispensable only for selected applications. Moreover, its role is very different in the case of analysis of small molecule pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals. Our review explains the role of current MS in the analysis of both small-molecule chemical drugs and biopharmaceuticals. Important features of MS-based technologies being implemented, method requirements, and related challenges are discussed. The differences in analytical procedures for small molecule pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals are pointed out. While a single method or a small set of methods is usually sufficient for quality control in the case of small molecule pharmaceuticals and MS is often not indispensable, a large panel of methods including extensive use of MS must be used for quality control of biopharmaceuticals. Finally, expected development and future trends are outlined.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Khalikova
- Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové, Charles University, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
- Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Hradec Králové, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
| | - Jakub Jireš
- Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, UCT Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
- Department of Development, Zentiva, k. s., Praha, Praha, Czech Republic
| | - Ondřej Horáček
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Analysis, Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové, Charles University, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
| | - Michal Douša
- Department of Development, Zentiva, k. s., Praha, Praha, Czech Republic
| | - Radim Kučera
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Analysis, Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové, Charles University, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
| | - Lucie Nováková
- Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové, Charles University, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
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11
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Jiang J, Li Y, Zhang R, Liu Y. INTransformer: Data augmentation-based contrastive learning by injecting noise into transformer for molecular property prediction. J Mol Graph Model 2024; 128:108703. [PMID: 38228013 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmgm.2024.108703] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2023] [Revised: 12/05/2023] [Accepted: 01/02/2024] [Indexed: 01/18/2024]
Abstract
Molecular property prediction plays an essential role in drug discovery for identifying the candidate molecules with target properties. Deep learning models usually require sufficient labeled data to train good prediction models. However, the size of labeled data is usually small for molecular property prediction, which brings great challenges to deep learning-based molecular property prediction methods. Furthermore, the global information of molecules is critical for predicting molecular properties. Therefore, we propose INTransformer for molecular property prediction, which is a data augmentation method via contrastive learning to alleviate the limitations of the labeled molecular data while enhancing the ability to capture global information. Specifically, INTransformer consists of two identical Transformer sub-encoders to extract the molecular representation from the original SMILES and noisy SMILES respectively, while achieving the goal of data augmentation. To reduce the influence of noise, we use contrastive learning to ensure the molecular encoding of noisy SMILES is consistent with that of the original input so that the molecular representation information can be better extracted by INTransformer. Experiments on various benchmark datasets show that INTransformer achieved competitive performance for molecular property prediction tasks compared with the baselines and state-of-the-art methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Jiang
- Key Laboratory of Linguistic and Cultural Computing, Ministry of Education, Northwest Minzu University, Lanzhou 730030, China.
| | - Yachao Li
- Key Laboratory of Linguistic and Cultural Computing, Ministry of Education, Northwest Minzu University, Lanzhou 730030, China.
| | - Ruisheng Zhang
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
| | - Yunwu Liu
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
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12
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Meng F, Liu J, Cao Z, Yu J, Steurer B, Yang Y, Wang Y, Cai X, Zhang M, Ren F, Aliper A, Ding X, Zhavoronkov A. Discovery of macrocyclic CDK2/4/6 inhibitors with improved potency and DMPK properties through a highly efficient macrocyclic drug design platform. Bioorg Chem 2024; 146:107285. [PMID: 38547721 DOI: 10.1016/j.bioorg.2024.107285] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2024] [Revised: 03/07/2024] [Accepted: 03/12/2024] [Indexed: 04/13/2024]
Abstract
Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) are critical cell cycle regulators that are often overexpressed in tumors, making them promising targets for anti-cancer therapies. Despite substantial advancements in optimizing the selectivity and drug-like properties of CDK inhibitors, safety of multi-target inhibitors remains a significant challenge. Macrocyclization is a promising drug discovery strategy to improve the pharmacological properties of existing compounds. Here we report the development of a macrocyclization platform that enabled the highly efficient discovery of a novel, macrocyclic CDK2/4/6 inhibitor from an acyclic precursor (NUV422). Using dihedral angle scan and structure-based, computer-aided drug design to select an optimal ring-closing site and linker length for the macrocycle, we identified compound 8 as a potent new CDK2/4/6 inhibitor with optimized cellular potency and safety profile compared to NUV422. Our platform leverages both experimentally-solved as well as generative chemistry-derived macrocyclic structures and can be deployed to streamline the design of macrocyclic new drugs from acyclic starting compounds, yielding macrocyclic compounds with enhanced potency and improved drug-like properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fanye Meng
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Jinxin Liu
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Zhongying Cao
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Jiaojiao Yu
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Barbara Steurer
- Insilico Medicine Hong Kong Ltd., Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, Hong Kong
| | - Yilin Yang
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Yazhou Wang
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Xin Cai
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Man Zhang
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Feng Ren
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Alex Aliper
- Insilico Medicine Hong Kong Ltd., Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, Hong Kong
| | - Xiao Ding
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China.
| | - Alex Zhavoronkov
- Insilico Medicine Shanghai Ltd., Shanghai 201203, China; Insilico Medicine Hong Kong Ltd., Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, Hong Kong; Insilico Medicine AI Limited, Masdar City, Abu Dhabi 145748, United Arab Emirates.
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13
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Avgerinos I, Kakotrichi P, Karagiannis T, Bekiari E, Tsapas A. The preclinical discovery and clinical evaluation of tirzepatide for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Expert Opin Drug Discov 2024; 19:511-522. [PMID: 38654653 DOI: 10.1080/17460441.2024.2324918] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/11/2023] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 04/26/2024]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Despite numerous antidiabetic medications available for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, a substantial percentage of patients fail to achieve optimal glycemic control. Furthermore, the escalating obesity pandemic underscores the urgent need for effective relevant pharmacotherapies. Tirzepatide, a novel dual GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonist, offers a promising therapeutic option. AREAS COVERED This review describes the discovery and clinical development of tirzepatide. Based on data from pivotal in vivo and in vitro studies, the authors present the pharmacodynamic profile of tirzepatide. Furthermore, they summarize data from the clinical trial programs that assessed the efficacy and safety of tirzepatide for the treatment of type 2 diabetes or obesity in a broad spectrum of patients, and discuss its therapeutic potential. EXPERT OPINION Tirzepatide effectively reduces glucose levels and body weight in patients with type 2 diabetes and/or obesity, with a generally safe profile. Based on data from phase 3 clinical trials, several agencies have approved its use for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity. Clinicians should be aware of possible adverse events, mainly mild-to-moderate gastrointestinal side effects. Overall, tirzepatide represents a promising treatment option for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ioannis Avgerinos
- Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine Unit, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
- Diabetes Centre, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Panagiota Kakotrichi
- Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine Unit, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
- Diabetes Centre, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Thomas Karagiannis
- Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine Unit, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
- Diabetes Centre, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Eleni Bekiari
- Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine Unit, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
- Diabetes Centre, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Apostolos Tsapas
- Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine Unit, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
- Diabetes Centre, Second Medical Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
- Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Churchill Hospital, Oxford, UK
- Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
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14
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Gao M, Zhang D, Chen Y, Zhang Y, Wang Z, Wang X, Li S, Guo Y, Webb GI, Nguyen ATN, May L, Song J. GraphormerDTI: A graph transformer-based approach for drug-target interaction prediction. Comput Biol Med 2024; 173:108339. [PMID: 38547658 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2024.108339] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/19/2023] [Revised: 03/05/2024] [Accepted: 03/17/2024] [Indexed: 04/17/2024]
Abstract
The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to screen drug molecules with potential therapeutic effects has revolutionized the drug discovery process, with significantly lower economic cost and time consumption than the traditional drug discovery pipeline. With the great power of AI, it is possible to rapidly search the vast chemical space for potential drug-target interactions (DTIs) between candidate drug molecules and disease protein targets. However, only a small proportion of molecules have labelled DTIs, consequently limiting the performance of AI-based drug screening. To solve this problem, a machine learning-based approach with great ability to generalize DTI prediction across molecules is desirable. Many existing machine learning approaches for DTI identification failed to exploit the full information with respect to the topological structures of candidate molecules. To develop a better approach for DTI prediction, we propose GraphormerDTI, which employs the powerful Graph Transformer neural network to model molecular structures. GraphormerDTI embeds molecular graphs into vector-format representations through iterative Transformer-based message passing, which encodes molecules' structural characteristics by node centrality encoding, node spatial encoding and edge encoding. With a strong structural inductive bias, the proposed GraphormerDTI approach can effectively infer informative representations for out-of-sample molecules and as such, it is capable of predicting DTIs across molecules with an exceptional performance. GraphormerDTI integrates the Graph Transformer neural network with a 1-dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (1D-CNN) to extract the drugs' and target proteins' representations and leverages an attention mechanism to model the interactions between them. To examine GraphormerDTI's performance for DTI prediction, we conduct experiments on three benchmark datasets, where GraphormerDTI achieves a superior performance than five state-of-the-art baselines for out-of-molecule DTI prediction, including GNN-CPI, GNN-PT, DeepEmbedding-DTI, MolTrans and HyperAttentionDTI, and is on a par with the best baseline for transductive DTI prediction. The source codes and datasets are publicly accessible at https://github.com/mengmeng34/GraphormerDTI.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mengmeng Gao
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Daokun Zhang
- Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
| | - Yi Chen
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
| | - Yiwen Zhang
- Climate, Air Quality Research Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, 3004, Australia
| | - Zhikang Wang
- Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Xiaoyu Wang
- Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Shanshan Li
- Climate, Air Quality Research Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, 3004, Australia
| | - Yuming Guo
- Climate, Air Quality Research Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, 3004, Australia
| | - Geoffrey I Webb
- Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Anh T N Nguyen
- Drug Discovery Biology Theme, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Lauren May
- Drug Discovery Biology Theme, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Jiangning Song
- Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
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15
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Kabir M, Qin L, Luo K, Xiong Y, Sidi RA, Park KS, Jin J. Discovery and Characterization of a Novel Cereblon-Recruiting PRC1 Bridged PROTAC Degrader. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6880-6892. [PMID: 38607318 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c00538] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/13/2024]
Abstract
Bridged PROTAC is a novel protein complex degrader strategy that exploits the target protein's binding partner to degrade undruggable proteins by inducing proximity to an E3 ubiquitin ligase. In this study, we discovered for the first time that cereblon (CRBN) can be employed for the bridged PROTAC approach and report the first-in-class CRBN-recruiting and EED-binding polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) degrader, compound 1 (MS181). We show that 1 induces preferential degradation of PRC1 components, BMI1 and RING1B, in an EED-, CRBN-, and ubiquitin-proteosome system (UPS)-dependent manner. Compound 1 also has superior antiproliferative activity in multiple metastatic cancer cell lines over EED-binding PRC2 degraders and can be efficacious in VHL-defective cancer cells. Altogether, compound 1 is a valuable chemical biology tool to study the role of PRC1 in cancer. Importantly, we show that CRBN can be utilized to develop bridged PROTACs, expanding the bridged PROTAC technology for degrading undruggable proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Md Kabir
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Sciences, Oncological Sciences and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Lihuai Qin
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Sciences, Oncological Sciences and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Kaixiu Luo
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Sciences, Oncological Sciences and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Yan Xiong
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Sciences, Oncological Sciences and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Rebecca A Sidi
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Sciences, Oncological Sciences and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Kwang-Su Park
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Sciences, Oncological Sciences and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Jian Jin
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Sciences, Oncological Sciences and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
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16
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Shuai W, Xiao H, Yang P, Zhang Y, Bu F, Wu Y, Sun Q, Wang G, Ouyang L. Structure-Guided Discovery and Preclinical Assessment of Novel (Thiophen-3-yl)aminopyrimidine Derivatives as Potent ERK1/2 Inhibitors. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6425-6455. [PMID: 38613499 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02392] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/15/2024]
Abstract
The RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK signaling cascade is abnormally activated in various tumors, playing a crucial role in mediating tumor progression. As the key component at the terminal stage of this cascade, ERK1/2 emerges as a potential antitumor target and offers a promising therapeutic strategy for tumors harboring BRAF or RAS mutations. Here, we identified 36c with a (thiophen-3-yl)aminopyrimidine scaffold as a potent ERK1/2 inhibitor through structure-guided optimization for hit 18. In preclinical studies, 36c showed powerful ERK1/2 inhibitory activities (ERK1/2 IC50 = 0.11/0.08 nM) and potent antitumor efficacy both in vitro and in vivo against triple-negative breast cancer and colorectal cancer models harboring BRAF and RAS mutations. 36c could directly inhibit ERK1/2, significantly block the phosphorylation expression of their downstream substrates p90RSK and c-Myc, and induce cell apoptosis and incomplete autophagy-related cell death. Taken together, this work provides a promising ERK1/2 lead compound for multiple tumor-treatment drug discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wen Shuai
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
| | - Huan Xiao
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
| | - Panpan Yang
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
| | - Yiwen Zhang
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
| | - Faqian Bu
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
| | - Yongya Wu
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
| | - Qiu Sun
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
| | - Guan Wang
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
| | - Liang Ouyang
- Department of Biotherapy, Cancer Center and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Innovation Center of Nursing Research, Nursing Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, West China Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
- Frontiers Medical Center, Tianfu Jincheng Laboratory, Chengdu 610212, Sichuan, China
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17
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Lv Q, Yang H, Wang D, Zhou H, Wang J, Zhang Y, Wu D, Xie Y, Lv Y, Hu L, Wang J. Discovery of a Novel CSF-1R Inhibitor with Highly Improved Pharmacokinetic Profiles and Superior Efficacy in Colorectal Cancer Immunotherapy. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6854-6879. [PMID: 38593344 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c00508] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/11/2024]
Abstract
Blocking CSF-1/CSF-1R pathway has emerged as a promising strategy to remodel tumor immune microenvironment (TME) by reprogramming tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). In this work, a novel CSF-1R inhibitor C19 with a highly improved pharmacokinetic profile and in vivo anticolorectal cancer (CRC) efficiency was successfully discovered. C19 could effectively reprogram M2-like TAMs to M1 phenotype and reshape the TME by inducing the recruitment of CD8+ T cells into tumors and reducing the infiltration of immunosuppressive Tregs/MDSCs. Deeper mechanistic studies revealed that C19 facilitated the infiltration of CD8+ T cells by enhancing the secretion of chemokine CXCL9, thus significantly potentiating the anti-CRC efficiency of PD-1 blockade. More importantly, C19 combined with PD-1 mAb could induce durable antitumor immune memory, effectively overcoming the recurrence of CRC. Taken together, our findings suggest that C19 is a promising therapeutic option for sensitizing CRC to anti-PD-1 therapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qi Lv
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Hongqiong Yang
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Dan Wang
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Haikun Zhou
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Juan Wang
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Yishu Zhang
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Dapeng Wu
- Jiangsu Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210029, P. R. China
| | - Ying Xie
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Yingshan Lv
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Lihong Hu
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
| | - Junwei Wang
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China
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18
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Tang Y, Zheng Y, Hu X, Zhao H, Cui S. Discovery of Potent and Selective PI3Kδ Inhibitors for the Treatment of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6638-6657. [PMID: 38577724 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c00094] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/06/2024]
Abstract
PI3Kδ is an essential target correlated to the occurrence and development of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Herein, we investigated the pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine derivatives as potent and selective PI3Kδ inhibitors with high therapeutic efficacy toward AML. There were 44 compounds designed and prepared in a four-round optimization, and the biological evaluation showed that (S)-36 exhibited potent PI3Kδ inhibitory activity, high selectivity, and high antiproliferative activities against MV-4-11 and MOLM-13 cells, coupled with high oral bioavailability (F = 59.6%). In the MOLM-13 subcutaneous xenograft model, (S)-36 could significantly suppress the tumor progression with a TGI of 67.81% at an oral administration dosage of 10 mg/kg without exhibiting obvious toxicity. Mechanistically, (S)-36 could robustly inhibit the PI3K/AKT pathway for significant suppression of cell proliferation and remarkable induction of apoptosis both in vitro and in vivo. Thus, compound (S)-36 represents a promising PI3Kδ inhibitor for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia with high efficacy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yongmei Tang
- Institute of Drug Discovery and Design, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Yanan Zheng
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou 311402, China
| | - Xueping Hu
- Institute of Frontier Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
| | - Huajun Zhao
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou 311402, China
| | - Sunliang Cui
- Institute of Drug Discovery and Design, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
- Jinhua Institute of Zhejiang University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province 321299, China
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19
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Cheng B, Shi Y, Shao C, Wang S, Su Z, Liu J, Zhou Y, Fei X, Pan W, Chen J, Lu Y, Xiao J. Discovery of Novel Heterotricyclic Compounds as DNA-Dependent Protein Kinase (DNA-PK) Inhibitors with Enhanced Chemosensitivity, Oral Bioavailability, and the Ability to Potentiate Cancer Immunotherapy. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6253-6267. [PMID: 38587857 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02231] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/09/2024]
Abstract
In this work, a novel series of heterotricyclic DNA-PK inhibitors were rationally designed, synthesized, and assessed for their biological activity. In the DNA-PK biochemical assay, most compounds displayed potent enzymatic activity, with IC50 values between 0.11 and 71.5 nM. Among them, SK10 exhibited the most potent DNA-PK-inhibitory activity (IC50 = 0.11 nM). Studies of the mechanism of action indicated that SK10 could lower γH2A.X expression levels and demonstrate optimal synergistic antiproliferative activity against Jurkat cells (IC50 = 25 nM) when combined with doxorubicin. Importantly, in CT26 and B16-F10 tumor-bearing mouse models, the combination therapies of SK10 with chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin, a PD-L1 antibody, and SWS1 (a potent PD-L1 small-molecule inhibitor) demonstrated superior synergistic anticancer and potential immunomodulatory effects. Furthermore, SK10 possessed favorable in vivo pharmacokinetic properties [e.g., oral bioavailability (F) = 31.8%]. Taken together, SK10 represents a novel heterotricyclic DNA-PK inhibitor with antitumor immune effects and favorable pharmacokinetics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Binbin Cheng
- Key Laboratory of Joint Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Liver Disease and Liver Cancer of Lishui, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Lishui People's Hospital, Lishui, Zhejiang 323000, China
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Renal Disease Occurrence and Intervention, Department of Pharmacy, School of Medicine, Hubei Polytechnic University, Huangshi, Hubei 435003, P. R. China
- Molecular Pharmacology Research Center, School of Pharmaceutical Science, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325035, China
| | - Yaru Shi
- Key Laboratory of Joint Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Liver Disease and Liver Cancer of Lishui, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Lishui People's Hospital, Lishui, Zhejiang 323000, China
| | - Chuxiao Shao
- Key Laboratory of Joint Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Liver Disease and Liver Cancer of Lishui, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Lishui People's Hospital, Lishui, Zhejiang 323000, China
| | - Shuanghu Wang
- Key Laboratory of Joint Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Liver Disease and Liver Cancer of Lishui, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Lishui People's Hospital, Lishui, Zhejiang 323000, China
| | - Zhenhong Su
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Renal Disease Occurrence and Intervention, Department of Pharmacy, School of Medicine, Hubei Polytechnic University, Huangshi, Hubei 435003, P. R. China
| | - Jin Liu
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Renal Disease Occurrence and Intervention, Department of Pharmacy, School of Medicine, Hubei Polytechnic University, Huangshi, Hubei 435003, P. R. China
| | - Yingxing Zhou
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Renal Disease Occurrence and Intervention, Department of Pharmacy, School of Medicine, Hubei Polytechnic University, Huangshi, Hubei 435003, P. R. China
| | - Xiaoting Fei
- Hubei Key Laboratory of Renal Disease Occurrence and Intervention, Department of Pharmacy, School of Medicine, Hubei Polytechnic University, Huangshi, Hubei 435003, P. R. China
| | - Wei Pan
- Cardiology Department, Geriatric Department, Foshan Women and Children Hospital, Foshan, Guangdong 528000, P. R. China
| | - Jianjun Chen
- School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, P. R. China
| | - Yiyu Lu
- Oncology Department, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Foshan 528200, China
| | - Jian Xiao
- Molecular Pharmacology Research Center, School of Pharmaceutical Science, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325035, China
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20
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Wazir S, Parviainen TAO, Pfannenstiel JJ, Duong MTH, Cluff D, Sowa ST, Galera-Prat A, Ferraris D, Maksimainen MM, Fehr AR, Heiskanen JP, Lehtiö L. Discovery of 2-Amide-3-methylester Thiophenes that Target SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 and Repress Coronavirus Replication, Validating Mac1 as an Antiviral Target. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6519-6536. [PMID: 38592023 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02451] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/10/2024]
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus has made it clear that further development of antiviral therapies will be needed. Here, we describe small-molecule inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 Mac1, which counters ADP-ribosylation-mediated innate immune responses. Three high-throughput screening hits had the same 2-amide-3-methylester thiophene scaffold. We studied the compound binding mode using X-ray crystallography, allowing us to design analogues. Compound 27 (MDOLL-0229) had an IC50 of 2.1 μM and was selective for CoV Mac1 proteins after profiling for activity against a panel of viral and human proteins. The improved potency allowed testing of its effect on virus replication, and indeed, 27 inhibited replication of both murine hepatitis virus (MHV) prototypes CoV and SARS-CoV-2. Sequencing of a drug-resistant MHV identified mutations in Mac1, further demonstrating the specificity of 27. Compound 27 is the first Mac1-targeted small molecule demonstrated to inhibit coronavirus replication in a cell model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Wazir
- Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine & Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, 90220 Oulu, Finland
| | - Tomi A O Parviainen
- Research Unit of Sustainable Chemistry, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4300, 90014 Oulu, Finland
| | - Jessica J Pfannenstiel
- Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, United States
| | - Men Thi Hoai Duong
- Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine & Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, 90220 Oulu, Finland
| | - Daniel Cluff
- Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, United States
| | - Sven T Sowa
- Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine & Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, 90220 Oulu, Finland
| | - Albert Galera-Prat
- Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine & Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, 90220 Oulu, Finland
| | - Dana Ferraris
- McDaniel College Department of Chemistry, 2 College Hill, Westminster, Maryland 21157, United States
| | - Mirko M Maksimainen
- Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine & Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, 90220 Oulu, Finland
| | - Anthony R Fehr
- Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, United States
| | - Juha P Heiskanen
- Research Unit of Sustainable Chemistry, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4300, 90014 Oulu, Finland
| | - Lari Lehtiö
- Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine & Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, 90220 Oulu, Finland
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21
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Velez J, Han Y, Yim H, Yang P, Deng Z, Park KS, Kabir M, Kaniskan HÜ, Xiong Y, Jin J. Discovery of the First-in-Class G9a/GLP PROTAC Degrader. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6397-6409. [PMID: 38602846 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02394] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/13/2024]
Abstract
Aberrantly expressed lysine methyltransferases G9a and GLP, which catalyze mono- and dimethylation of histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9), have been implicated in numerous cancers. Recent studies have uncovered both catalytic and noncatalytic oncogenic functions of G9a/GLP. As such, G9a/GLP catalytic inhibitors have displayed limited anticancer activity. Here, we report the discovery of the first-in-class G9a/GLP proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) degrader 10 (MS8709), as a potential anticancer therapeutic. 10 induces G9a/GLP degradation in a concentration-, time-, and ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS)-dependent manner. Futhermore, 10 does not alter the mRNA expression of G9a/GLP and is selective for G9a/GLP over other methyltransferases. Moreover, 10 displays superior cell growth inhibition to the parent G9a/GLP inhibitor UNC0642 in prostate, leukemia, and lung cancer cells and has suitable mouse pharmacokinetic properties for in vivo efficacy studies. Overall, 10 is a valuable chemical biology tool to further investigate the functions of G9a/GLP and a potential therapeutic for treating G9a/GLP-dependent cancers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia Velez
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Yulin Han
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Hyerin Yim
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Peiyi Yang
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Zhijie Deng
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Kwang-Su Park
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Md Kabir
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - H Ümit Kaniskan
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Yan Xiong
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
| | - Jian Jin
- Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, Departments of Pharmacological Science, Oncological Science, and Neuroscience, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, United States
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22
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Liu F, Kou Q, Li H, Cao Y, Chen M, Meng X, Zhang Y, Wang T, Wang H, Zhang D, Yang Y. Discovery of YFJ-36: Design, Synthesis, and Antibacterial Activities of Catechol-Conjugated β-Lactams against Gram-Negative Bacteria. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6705-6725. [PMID: 38596897 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c00265] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/11/2024]
Abstract
Cefiderocol is the first approved catechol-conjugated cephalosporin against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, while its application was limited by poor chemical stability associated with the pyrrolidinium linker, moderate potency against Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumannii, intricate procedures for salt preparation, and potential hypersensitivity. To address these issues, a series of novel catechol-conjugated derivatives were designed, synthesized, and evaluated. Extensive structure-activity relationships and structure-metabolism relationships (SMR) were conducted, leading to the discovery of a promising compound 86b (Code no. YFJ-36) with a new thioether linker. 86b exhibited superior and broad-spectrum in vitro antibacterial activity, especially against A. baumannii and K. pneumoniae, compared with cefiderocol. Potent in vivo efficacy was observed in a murine systemic infection model. Furthermore, the physicochemical stability of 86b in fluid medium at pH 6-8 was enhanced. 86b also reduced potential the risk of allergy owing to the quaternary ammonium linker. The improved properties of 86b supported its further research and development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fangjun Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
- School of Pharmacy, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Qunhuan Kou
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
- School of Pharmacy, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Hongyuan Li
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
- School of Pharmacy, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Yangzhi Cao
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
- School of Pharmacy, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Meng Chen
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
- School of Pharmacy, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Xin Meng
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Yinyong Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
- School of Pharmacy, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Ting Wang
- Department of Microbiology, Sichuan Primed Bio-Tech Group Co., Ltd., Chengdu, Sichuan Province 610041, P. R. China
| | - Hui Wang
- China Pharmaceutical University, Jiangsu 211198, China
| | - Dan Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
| | - Yushe Yang
- State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China
- School of Pharmacy, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
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23
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Zhang L, Hu W, Guo H, Sun Q, Xu X, Li Z, Qiu Z, Bian J. Discovery of Highly Potent Solute Carrier 13 Member 5 (SLC13A5) Inhibitors for the Treatment of Hyperlipidemia. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6687-6704. [PMID: 38574002 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c00260] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/06/2024]
Abstract
In the face of escalating metabolic disease prevalence, largely driven by modern lifestyle factors, this study addresses the critical need for novel therapeutic approaches. We have identified the sodium-coupled citrate transporter (NaCT or SLC13A5) as a target for intervention. Utilizing rational drug design, we developed a new class of SLC13A5 inhibitors, anchored by the hydroxysuccinic acid scaffold, refining the structure of PF-06649298. Among these, LBA-3 emerged as a standout compound, exhibiting remarkable potency with an IC50 value of 67 nM, significantly improving upon PF-06649298. In vitro assays demonstrated LBA-3's efficacy in reducing triglyceride levels in OPA-induced HepG2 cells. Moreover, LBA-3 displayed superior pharmacokinetic properties and effectively lowered triglyceride and total cholesterol levels in diverse mouse models (PCN-stimulated and starvation-induced), without detectable toxicity. These findings not only spotlight LBA-3 as a promising candidate for hyperlipidemia treatment but also exemplify the potential of targeted molecular design in advancing metabolic disorder therapeutics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li'ao Zhang
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, P. R. China
| | - Wenjun Hu
- Departments of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211100, P. R. China
| | - Huimin Guo
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, P. R. China
| | - Qiushuang Sun
- Department of Pharmacology of Chinese Materia Medica, School of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy, Nanjing 211100, P. R. China
| | - Xi Xu
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, P. R. China
| | - Zhiyu Li
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, P. R. China
| | - Zhixia Qiu
- Departments of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211100, P. R. China
| | - Jinlei Bian
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, P. R. China
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24
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Cottrell KM, Briggs KJ, Whittington DA, Jahic H, Ali JA, Davis CB, Gong S, Gotur D, Gu L, McCarren P, Tonini MR, Tsai A, Wilker EW, Yuan H, Zhang M, Zhang W, Huang A, Maxwell JP. Discovery of TNG908: A Selective, Brain Penetrant, MTA-Cooperative PRMT5 Inhibitor That Is Synthetically Lethal with MTAP-Deleted Cancers. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6064-6080. [PMID: 38595098 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c00133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/11/2024]
Abstract
It has been shown that PRMT5 inhibition by small molecules can selectively kill cancer cells with homozygous deletion of the MTAP gene if the inhibitors can leverage the consequence of MTAP deletion, namely, accumulation of the MTAP substrate MTA. Herein, we describe the discovery of TNG908, a potent inhibitor that binds the PRMT5·MTA complex, leading to 15-fold-selective killing of MTAP-deleted (MTAP-null) cells compared to MTAPintact (MTAP WT) cells. TNG908 shows selective antitumor activity when dosed orally in mouse xenograft models, and its physicochemical properties are amenable for crossing the blood-brain barrier (BBB), supporting clinical study for the treatment of both CNS and non-CNS tumors with MTAP loss.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Haris Jahic
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Janid A Ali
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Charles B Davis
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Shanzhong Gong
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Deepali Gotur
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Lina Gu
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | | | | | - Alice Tsai
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Erik W Wilker
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Hongling Yuan
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Minjie Zhang
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Wenhai Zhang
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - Alan Huang
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
| | - John P Maxwell
- Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States
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25
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Sun Y, Zhou Z, Wang N, Zhao F, Liu Y, Xu X, Wang X, Gou Z, De Clercq E, Pannecouque C, Zhan P, Kang D, Liu X. Discovery of Novel Aryl Triazolone Dihydropyridines (ATDPs) Targeting Highly Conserved Residue W229 as Promising HIV-1 NNRTIs. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6570-6584. [PMID: 38613773 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c00026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/15/2024]
Abstract
NNRTI is an important component of the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), but the rapid emergence of drug resistance and poor pharmacokinetics limited their clinical application. Herein, a series of novel aryl triazolone dihydropyridines (ATDPs) were designed by structure-guided design with the aim of improving drug resistance profiles and pharmacokinetic profiles. Compound 10n (EC50 = 0.009-17.7 μM) exhibited the most active potency, being superior to or comparable to that of doravirine (DOR) against the whole tested viral panel. Molecular docking was performed to clarify the reason for its higher resistance profiles. Moreover, 10n demonstrated excellent pharmacokinetic profile (T1/2 = 5.09 h, F = 108.96%) compared that of DOR (T1/2 = 4.4 h, F = 57%). Additionally, 10n was also verified to have no in vivo acute or subacute toxicity (LD50 > 2000 mg/kg), suggesting that 10n is worth further investigation as a novel oral NNRTIs for HIV-1 therapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanying Sun
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
| | - Zhenzhen Zhou
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
| | - Na Wang
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
| | - Fabao Zhao
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
| | - Ying Liu
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
| | - Xiaoxuan Xu
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
| | - Xiaohan Wang
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
| | - Zhenbang Gou
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
| | - Erik De Clercq
- Rega Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory of Virology and Chemotherapy, K.U. Leuven, Herestraat 49 Postbus 1043 (09.A097), Leuven B-3000, Belgium
| | - Christophe Pannecouque
- Rega Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory of Virology and Chemotherapy, K.U. Leuven, Herestraat 49 Postbus 1043 (09.A097), Leuven B-3000, Belgium
| | - Peng Zhan
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
- China-Belgium Collaborative Research Center for Innovative Antiviral Drugs of Shandong Province, Jinan 250012, P.R. China
| | - Dongwei Kang
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
- China-Belgium Collaborative Research Center for Innovative Antiviral Drugs of Shandong Province, Jinan 250012, P.R. China
| | - Xinyong Liu
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Culture Road ,Jinan ,Shandong 250012, P.R. China
- China-Belgium Collaborative Research Center for Innovative Antiviral Drugs of Shandong Province, Jinan 250012, P.R. China
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26
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Varty GB, Canal CE, Mueller TA, Hartsel JA, Tyagi R, Avery K, Morgan ME, Reichelt AC, Pathare P, Stang E, Palfreyman MG, Nivorozhkin A. Synthesis and Structure-Activity Relationships of 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-Substituted Phenethylamines and the Discovery of CYB210010: A Potent, Orally Bioavailable and Long-Acting Serotonin 5-HT 2 Receptor Agonist. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6144-6188. [PMID: 38593423 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c01961] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/11/2024]
Abstract
Structure-activity studies of 4-substituted-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamines led to the discovery of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-thiotrifluoromethylphenethylamines, including CYB210010, a potent and long-acting serotonin 5-HT2 receptor agonist. CYB210010 exhibited high agonist potency at 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors, modest selectivity over 5-HT2B, 5-HT1A, 5-HT6, and adrenergic α2A receptors, and lacked activity at monoamine transporters and over 70 other proteins. CYB210010 (0.1-3 mg/kg) elicited a head-twitch response (HTR) and could be administered subchronically at threshold doses without behavioral tolerance. CYB210010 was orally bioavailable in three species, readily and preferentially crossed into the CNS, engaged frontal cortex 5-HT2A receptors, and increased the expression of genes involved in neuroplasticity in the frontal cortex. CYB210010 represents a new tool molecule for investigating the therapeutic potential of 5-HT2 receptor activation. In addition, several other compounds with high 5-HT2A receptor potency, yet with little or no HTR activity, were discovered, providing the groundwork for the development of nonpsychedelic 5-HT2A receptor ligands.
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Affiliation(s)
- Geoffrey B Varty
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
| | - Clinton E Canal
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
- College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Mercer University, 3001 Mercer University Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30341, United States
| | - Tina A Mueller
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
- BioIVT, Hicksville, New York 11803, United States
| | - Joshua A Hartsel
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
- Consultant, UPS PO Box #105-650, 25422 Trabuco Road, Lake Forest, California 92630, United States
| | - Richa Tyagi
- College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Mercer University, 3001 Mercer University Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30341, United States
| | - Ken Avery
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
| | - Michael E Morgan
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
| | - Amy C Reichelt
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
- Faculty of Biomedicine, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia
| | - Pradip Pathare
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
| | - Erik Stang
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
| | | | - Alex Nivorozhkin
- Cybin IRL Limited, North Wall Quay, 1 Spencer Dock, Dublin 1 DO1 X9R7, Ireland
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27
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Ni T, Hao Y, Ding Z, Chi X, Xie F, Wang R, Bao J, Yan L, Li L, Wang T, Zhang D, Jiang Y. Discovery of a Novel Potent Tetrazole Antifungal Candidate with High Selectivity and Broad Spectrum. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6238-6252. [PMID: 38598688 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02188] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/12/2024]
Abstract
Thirty-one novel albaconazole derivatives were designed and synthesized based on our previous work. All compounds exhibited potent in vitro antifungal activities against seven pathogenic fungi. Among them, tetrazole compound D2 was the most potent antifungal with MIC values of <0.008, <0.008, and 2 μg/mL against Candida albicans, Cryptococcus neoformans, and Aspergillus fumigatus, respectively, the three most common and critical priority pathogenic fungi. In addition, compound D2 also exhibited potent activity against fluconazole-resistant C. auris isolates. Notably, compound D2 showed a lower inhibitory activity in vitro against human CYP450 enzymes as well as a lower inhibitory effect on the hERG K+ channel, indicating a low risk of drug-drug interactions and QT prolongation. Moreover, with improved pharmacokinetic profiles, compound D2 showed better in vivo efficacy than albaconazole at reducing fungal burden and extending the survival of C. albicans-infected mice. Taken together, compound D2 will be further investigated as a promising candidate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tingjunhong Ni
- Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, No. 1239 Siping Road ,Shanghai 200092, China
| | - Yumeng Hao
- School of Pharmacy, Naval Medical University, No. 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Zichao Ding
- School of Pharmacy, Naval Medical University, No. 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China
- Department of Pharmacy, 927th Hospital of Joint Logistics Support Force, 3 Yushui Road ,Puer 665000, China
| | - Xiaochen Chi
- School of Chinese Materia Medica, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang 110016, China
| | - Fei Xie
- School of Pharmacy, Naval Medical University, No. 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Ruina Wang
- School of Pharmacy, Naval Medical University, No. 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Junhe Bao
- School of Pharmacy, Naval Medical University, No. 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Lan Yan
- School of Pharmacy, Naval Medical University, No. 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Liping Li
- Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, No. 1239 Siping Road ,Shanghai 200092, China
| | - Ting Wang
- School of Pharmacy, Naval Medical University, No. 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Dazhi Zhang
- Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, No. 1239 Siping Road ,Shanghai 200092, China
- School of Pharmacy, Naval Medical University, No. 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Yuanying Jiang
- Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, No. 1239 Siping Road ,Shanghai 200092, China
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28
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Alugubelli YR, Xiao J, Khatua K, Kumar S, Sun L, Ma Y, Ma XR, Vulupala VR, Atla S, Blankenship LR, Coleman D, Xie X, Neuman BW, Liu WR, Xu S. Discovery of First-in-Class PROTAC Degraders of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6495-6507. [PMID: 38608245 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02416] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/14/2024]
Abstract
We have witnessed three coronavirus (CoV) outbreaks in the past two decades, including the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Main protease (MPro), a highly conserved protease among various CoVs, is essential for viral replication and pathogenesis, making it a prime target for antiviral drug development. Here, we leverage proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) technology to develop a new class of small-molecule antivirals that induce the degradation of SARS-CoV-2 MPro. Among them, MPD2 was demonstrated to effectively reduce MPro protein levels in 293T cells, relying on a time-dependent, CRBN-mediated, and proteasome-driven mechanism. Furthermore, MPD2 exhibited remarkable efficacy in diminishing MPro protein levels in SARS-CoV-2-infected A549-ACE2 cells. MPD2 also displayed potent antiviral activity against various SARS-CoV-2 strains and exhibited enhanced potency against nirmatrelvir-resistant viruses. Overall, this proof-of-concept study highlights the potential of targeted protein degradation of MPro as an innovative approach for developing antivirals that could fight against drug-resistant viral variants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yugendar R Alugubelli
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Jing Xiao
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Kaustav Khatua
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Sathish Kumar
- Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Long Sun
- Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas 77555, United States
| | - Yuying Ma
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Xinyu R Ma
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Veerabhadra R Vulupala
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Sandeep Atla
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Lauren R Blankenship
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Demonta Coleman
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Xuping Xie
- Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas 77555, United States
| | - Benjamin W Neuman
- Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
- Texas A&M Global Health Research Complex, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Wenshe Ray Liu
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
- Institute of Biosciences and Technology and Department of Translational Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University, Houston, Texas 77030, United States
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Shiqing Xu
- Texas A&M Drug Discovery Center, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
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29
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Ramos AL, Goedken ER, Frank KE, Argiriadi MA, Bazzaz S, Bian Z, Brown JTC, Centrella PA, Chen HJ, Disch JS, Donner PL, Duignan DB, Gikunju D, Greszler SN, Guié MA, Habeshian S, Hartl HE, Hein CD, Hutchins CW, Jetson R, Keefe AD, Khan H, Li HQ, Olszewski A, Ortiz Cardona BJ, Osuma A, Panchal SC, Phelan R, Qiu W, Shotwell JB, Shrestha A, Srikumaran M, Su Z, Sun C, Upadhyay AK, Wood MD, Wu H, Zhang R, Zhang Y, Zhao G, Zhu H, Webster MP. Discovery of Small Molecule Interleukin 17A Inhibitors with Novel Binding Mode and Stoichiometry: Optimization of DNA-Encoded Chemical Library Hits to In Vivo Active Compounds. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6456-6494. [PMID: 38574366 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02397] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/06/2024]
Abstract
Dysregulation of IL17A drives numerous inflammatory and autoimmune disorders with inhibition of IL17A using antibodies proven as an effective treatment. Oral anti-IL17 therapies are an attractive alternative option, and several preclinical small molecule IL17 inhibitors have previously been described. Herein, we report the discovery of a novel class of small molecule IL17A inhibitors, identified via a DNA-encoded chemical library screen, and their subsequent optimization to provide in vivo efficacious inhibitors. These new protein-protein interaction (PPI) inhibitors bind in a previously undescribed mode in the IL17A protein with two copies binding symmetrically to the central cavities of the IL17A homodimer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashley L Ramos
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Eric R Goedken
- AbbVie Bioresearch Center, Worcester, Massachusetts 01605, United States
| | - Kristine E Frank
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Maria A Argiriadi
- AbbVie Bioresearch Center, Worcester, Massachusetts 01605, United States
| | - Sana Bazzaz
- X-Chem, Waltham, Massachusetts 02453, United States
| | - Zhiguo Bian
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Jesse T C Brown
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | | | - Hui-Ju Chen
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | | | - Pamela L Donner
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - David B Duignan
- AbbVie Bioresearch Center, Worcester, Massachusetts 01605, United States
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Hasan Khan
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Huan-Qiu Li
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | | | | | - Augustine Osuma
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Sanjay C Panchal
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Ryan Phelan
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Wei Qiu
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - J Brad Shotwell
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Anurupa Shrestha
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Myron Srikumaran
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Zhi Su
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Chaohong Sun
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Anup K Upadhyay
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Michael D Wood
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Haihong Wu
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Ruijie Zhang
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Ying Zhang
- X-Chem, Waltham, Massachusetts 02453, United States
| | - Gang Zhao
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
| | - Haizhong Zhu
- AbbVie Incorporated, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, United States
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30
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Rath M, Wellnitz J, Martin HJ, Melo-Filho C, Hochuli JE, Silva GM, Beasley JM, Travis M, Sessions ZL, Popov KI, Zakharov AV, Cherkasov A, Alves V, Muratov EN, Tropsha A. Pharmacokinetics Profiler (PhaKinPro): Model Development, Validation, and Implementation as a Web Tool for Triaging Compounds with Undesired Pharmacokinetics Profiles. J Med Chem 2024; 67:6508-6518. [PMID: 38568752 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c02446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/05/2024]
Abstract
Computational models that predict pharmacokinetic properties are critical to deprioritize drug candidates that emerge as hits in high-throughput screening campaigns. We collected, curated, and integrated a database of compounds tested in 12 major end points comprising over 10,000 unique molecules. We then employed these data to build and validate binary quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) models. All trained models achieved a correct classification rate above 0.60 and a positive predictive value above 0.50. To illustrate their utility in drug discovery, we used these models to predict the pharmacokinetic properties for drugs in the NCATS Inxight Drugs database. In addition, we employed the developed models to predict the pharmacokinetic properties of all compounds in the DrugBank. All models described in this paper have been integrated and made publicly available via the PhaKinPro Web-portal that can be accessed at https://phakinpro.mml.unc.edu/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marielle Rath
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - James Wellnitz
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Holli-Joi Martin
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Cleber Melo-Filho
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Joshua E Hochuli
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Guilherme Martins Silva
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Jon-Michael Beasley
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Maxfield Travis
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Zoe L Sessions
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Konstantin I Popov
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Alexey V Zakharov
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, 9800 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20850, United States
| | - Artem Cherkasov
- Vancouver Prostate Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6H3Z6, Canada
| | - Vinicius Alves
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Eugene N Muratov
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
| | - Alexander Tropsha
- Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
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31
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Gu Z, Yan Y, Liu H, Wu D, Yao H, Lin K, Li X. Discovery of Covalent Lead Compounds Targeting 3CL Protease with a Lateral Interactions Spiking Neural Network. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:3047-3058. [PMID: 38520328 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01900] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/25/2024]
Abstract
Covalent drugs exhibit advantages in that noncovalent drugs cannot match, and covalent docking is an important method for screening covalent lead compounds. However, it is difficult for covalent docking to screen covalent compounds on a large scale because covalent docking requires determination of the covalent reaction type of the compound. Here, we propose to use deep learning of a lateral interactions spiking neural network to construct a covalent lead compound screening model to quickly screen covalent lead compounds. We used the 3CL protease (3CL Pro) of SARS-CoV-2 as the screen target and constructed two classification models based on LISNN to predict the covalent binding and inhibitory activity of compounds. The two classification models were trained on the covalent complex data set targeting cysteine (Cys) and the compound inhibitory activity data set targeting 3CL Pro, respected, with good prediction accuracy (ACC > 0.9). We then screened the screening compound library with 6 covalent binding screening models and 12 inhibitory activity screening models. We tested the inhibitory activity of the 32 compounds, and the best compound inhibited SARS-CoV-2 3CL Pro with an IC50 value of 369.5 nM. Further assay implied that dithiothreitol can affect the inhibitory activity of the compound to 3CL Pro, indicating that the compound may covalently bind 3CL Pro. The selectivity test showed that the compound had good target selectivity to 3CL Pro over cathepsin L. These correlation assays can prove the rationality of the covalent lead compound screening model. Finally, covalent docking was performed to demonstrate the binding conformation of the compound with 3CL Pro. The source code can be obtained from the GitHub repository (https://github.com/guzh970630/Screen_Covalent_Compound_by_LISNN).
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhihao Gu
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210009, China
- Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies and School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China
| | - Yong Yan
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210009, China
| | - Hanwen Liu
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210009, China
| | - Di Wu
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210009, China
| | - Hequan Yao
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210009, China
| | - Kejiang Lin
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210009, China
| | - Xuanyi Li
- Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210009, China
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32
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Daoud S, Taha M. Protein characteristics substantially influence the propensity of activity cliffs among kinase inhibitors. Sci Rep 2024; 14:9058. [PMID: 38643174 PMCID: PMC11032345 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-59501-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2023] [Accepted: 04/11/2024] [Indexed: 04/22/2024] Open
Abstract
Activity cliffs (ACs) are pairs of structurally similar molecules with significantly different affinities for a biotarget, posing a challenge in computer-assisted drug discovery. This study focuses on protein kinases, significant therapeutic targets, with some exhibiting ACs while others do not despite numerous inhibitors. The hypothesis that the presence of ACs is dependent on the target protein and its complete structural context is explored. Machine learning models were developed to link protein properties to ACs, revealing specific tripeptide sequences and overall protein properties as critical factors in ACs occurrence. The study highlights the importance of considering the entire protein matrix rather than just the binding site in understanding ACs. This research provides valuable insights for drug discovery and design, paving the way for addressing ACs-related challenges in modern computational approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Safa Daoud
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Applied Sciences Private University, Amman, Jordan.
| | - Mutasem Taha
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.
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33
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Moine-Franel A, Mareuil F, Nilges M, Ciambur CB, Sperandio O. A comprehensive dataset of protein-protein interactions and ligand binding pockets for advancing drug discovery. Sci Data 2024; 11:402. [PMID: 38643260 PMCID: PMC11032347 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-024-03233-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2023] [Accepted: 04/05/2024] [Indexed: 04/22/2024] Open
Abstract
This dataset represents a collection of pocket-centric structural data related to protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and PPI-related ligand binding sites. The dataset includes high-quality structural information on more than 23,000 pockets, 3,700 proteins on more than 500 organisms, and nearly 3500 ligands that can aid researchers in the fields of bioinformatics, structural biology, and drug discovery. It encompasses a diverse set of PPI complexes with more than 1,700 unique protein families including some with associated ligands, enabling detailed investigations into molecular interactions at the atomic level. This article introduces an indispensable resource designed to unlock the full potential of PPIs while pioneering a novel metric for pocket similarity for hypothesizing protein partners repurposing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra Moine-Franel
- Structural Bioinformatics Unit, Department of Structural Biology and Chemistry, Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, CNRS UMR3528, Paris, France
- Collège Doctoral, Sorbonne Université, Paris, F-75005, France
| | - Fabien Mareuil
- Structural Bioinformatics Unit, Department of Structural Biology and Chemistry, Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, CNRS UMR3528, Paris, France
| | - Michael Nilges
- Structural Bioinformatics Unit, Department of Structural Biology and Chemistry, Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, CNRS UMR3528, Paris, France
| | - Constantin Bogdan Ciambur
- Structural Bioinformatics Unit, Department of Structural Biology and Chemistry, Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, CNRS UMR3528, Paris, France
| | - Olivier Sperandio
- Structural Bioinformatics Unit, Department of Structural Biology and Chemistry, Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, CNRS UMR3528, Paris, France.
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34
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Hossain MM, Khalid A, Akhter Z, Parveen S, Ayaz MO, Bhat AQ, Badesra N, Showket F, Dar MS, Ahmed F, Dhiman S, Kumar M, Singh U, Hussain R, Keshari P, Mustafa G, Nargorta A, Taneja N, Gupta S, Mir RA, Kshatri AS, Nandi U, Khan N, Ramajayan P, Yadav G, Ahmed Z, Singh PP, Dar MJ. Discovery of a novel and highly selective JAK3 inhibitor as a potent hair growth promoter. J Transl Med 2024; 22:370. [PMID: 38637842 PMCID: PMC11025159 DOI: 10.1186/s12967-024-05144-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2023] [Accepted: 03/23/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024] Open
Abstract
JAK-STAT signalling pathway inhibitors have emerged as promising therapeutic agents for the treatment of hair loss. Among different JAK isoforms, JAK3 has become an ideal target for drug discovery because it only regulates a narrow spectrum of γc cytokines. Here, we report the discovery of MJ04, a novel and highly selective 3-pyrimidinylazaindole based JAK3 inhibitor, as a potential hair growth promoter with an IC50 of 2.03 nM. During in vivo efficacy assays, topical application of MJ04 on DHT-challenged AGA and athymic nude mice resulted in early onset of hair regrowth. Furthermore, MJ04 significantly promoted the growth of human hair follicles under ex-vivo conditions. MJ04 exhibited a reasonably good pharmacokinetic profile and demonstrated a favourable safety profile under in vivo and in vitro conditions. Taken together, we report MJ04 as a highly potent and selective JAK3 inhibitor that exhibits overall properties suitable for topical drug development and advancement to human clinical trials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Md Mehedi Hossain
- Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
| | - Arfan Khalid
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Zaheen Akhter
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Natural Products and Medicinal Chemistry Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Sabra Parveen
- Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
| | - Mir Owais Ayaz
- Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
| | - Aadil Qadir Bhat
- Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
| | - Neetu Badesra
- Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
| | - Farheen Showket
- Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
| | - Mohmmad Saleem Dar
- Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
| | - Farhan Ahmed
- Division of Neuroscience and Ageing Biology, CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, 226031, India
| | - Sumit Dhiman
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Mukesh Kumar
- Medicinal Product Chemistry, Sussex Drug Discovery Centre, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QG, UK
| | - Umed Singh
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Natural Products and Medicinal Chemistry Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Razak Hussain
- Department of Entomology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA
| | - Pankaj Keshari
- Department of Biochemistry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
| | - Ghulam Mustafa
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Amit Nargorta
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Natural Products and Medicinal Chemistry Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Neha Taneja
- Department of Dermatology and Venereology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
| | - Somesh Gupta
- Department of Dermatology and Venereology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
| | - Riyaz A Mir
- Department of Biochemistry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
| | - Aravind Singh Kshatri
- Division of Neuroscience and Ageing Biology, CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, 226031, India
| | - Utpal Nandi
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Nooruddin Khan
- Department of Animal Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, 500046, India
| | - P Ramajayan
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Govind Yadav
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Zabeer Ahmed
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
- Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India
| | - Parvinder Pal Singh
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India.
- Natural Products and Medicinal Chemistry Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India.
| | - Mohd Jamal Dar
- Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, 180001, India.
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India.
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35
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Regen SL. Drug Design: Do Not Forget the Supramolecular Factor. Biochemistry 2024; 63:953-957. [PMID: 38545902 PMCID: PMC11025121 DOI: 10.1021/acs.biochem.3c00721] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2023] [Revised: 03/19/2024] [Accepted: 03/20/2024] [Indexed: 04/17/2024]
Abstract
A major challenge currently facing medicinal chemists is designing agents that can selectively destroy drug resistant fungi and bacteria that have begun to emerge. One factor that has been overlooked by virtually all drug discovery/development approaches is the supramolecular factor, in which aggregated forms of a drug candidate exhibit low selectivity in destroying targeted cells while the corresponding monomers exhibit high selectivity. This Perspective discusses how we were led to the supramolecular factor through fundamental studies with simple model systems, how we reasoned that the selectivity of monomers of the antifungal agent amphotericin B should be much greater than the selectivity of the corresponding aggregates, and how we confirmed this hypothesis using derivatives of amphotericin B. In a broader context, these findings provide a strong rationale for considering the supramolecular factor in the design of new drug candidates and the testing of virtually all of them.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steven L. Regen
- Department of Chemistry, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, United States
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36
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Vik D, Pii D, Mudaliar C, Nørregaard-Madsen M, Kontijevskis A. Performance and robustness of small molecule retention time prediction with molecular graph neural networks in industrial drug discovery campaigns. Sci Rep 2024; 14:8733. [PMID: 38627535 PMCID: PMC11021461 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-59620-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2023] [Accepted: 04/12/2024] [Indexed: 04/19/2024] Open
Abstract
This study explores how machine-learning can be used to predict chromatographic retention times (RT) for the analysis of small molecules, with the objective of identifying a machine-learning framework with the robustness required to support a chemical synthesis production platform. We used internally generated data from high-throughput parallel synthesis in context of pharmaceutical drug discovery projects. We tested machine-learning models from the following frameworks: XGBoost, ChemProp, and DeepChem, using a dataset of 7552 small molecules. Our findings show that two specific models, AttentiveFP and ChemProp, performed better than XGBoost and a regular neural network in predicting RT accurately. We also assessed how well these models performed over time and found that molecular graph neural networks consistently gave accurate predictions for new chemical series. In addition, when we applied ChemProp on the publicly available METLIN SMRT dataset, it performed impressively with an average error of 38.70 s. These results highlight the efficacy of molecular graph neural networks, especially ChemProp, in diverse RT prediction scenarios, thereby enhancing the efficiency of chromatographic analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Vik
- Amgen Research Copenhagen, Amgen Inc., 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark.
| | - David Pii
- Amgen Research Copenhagen, Amgen Inc., 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Chirag Mudaliar
- Amgen Research Copenhagen, Amgen Inc., 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
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37
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Hall A, Chatzopoulou M, Frost J. Bioisoteres for carboxylic acids: From ionized isosteres to novel unionized replacements. Bioorg Med Chem 2024; 104:117653. [PMID: 38579492 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmc.2024.117653] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2023] [Revised: 02/05/2024] [Accepted: 02/19/2024] [Indexed: 04/07/2024]
Abstract
Carboxylic acids are key pharmacophoric elements in many molecules. They can be seen as a problem by some, due to perceived permeability challenges, potential for high plasma protein binding and the risk of forming reactive metabolites due to acyl-glucuronidation. By others they are viewed more favorably as they can decrease lipophilicity by adding an ionizable center which can be beneficial for solubility, and can add enthalpic interactions with the target protein. However, there are many instances where the replacement of a carboxylic acid with a bioisosteric group is required. This has led to the development of a number of ionizable groups which sufficiently mimic the carboxylic acid functionality whilst improving, for example, the metabolic profile of the molecule in question. An alternative strategy involves replacement of the carboxylate by neutral functional groups. This review initially details carefully selected examples whereby tetrazoles, acyl sulfonamides or isoxazolols have been beneficially utilized as carboxylic acid bioisosteres altering physicohemical properties, interactions with the target and metabolism and/or pharmacokinetics, before delving further into the binding mode of carboxylic acid derivatives with their target proteins. This analysis highlights new ways to consider the replacement of carboxylic acids by neutral bioisosteric groups which either rely on hydrogen bonds or cation-π interactions. It should serve as a useful guide for scientists working in drug discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adrian Hall
- UCB, Chemin du Foriest, Braine l'Alleud, Belgium, 1420 UCB, 216 Bath Road, Slough SL1 3WE, UK.
| | - Maria Chatzopoulou
- UCB, Chemin du Foriest, Braine l'Alleud, Belgium, 1420 UCB, 216 Bath Road, Slough SL1 3WE, UK
| | - James Frost
- UCB, Chemin du Foriest, Braine l'Alleud, Belgium, 1420 UCB, 216 Bath Road, Slough SL1 3WE, UK
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38
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Zhang M, Chen T, Lu X, Lan X, Chen Z, Lu S. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs): advances in structures, mechanisms, and drug discovery. Signal Transduct Target Ther 2024; 9:88. [PMID: 38594257 PMCID: PMC11004190 DOI: 10.1038/s41392-024-01803-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2023] [Revised: 02/19/2024] [Accepted: 03/13/2024] [Indexed: 04/11/2024] Open
Abstract
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the largest family of human membrane proteins and an important class of drug targets, play a role in maintaining numerous physiological processes. Agonist or antagonist, orthosteric effects or allosteric effects, and biased signaling or balanced signaling, characterize the complexity of GPCR dynamic features. In this study, we first review the structural advancements, activation mechanisms, and functional diversity of GPCRs. We then focus on GPCR drug discovery by revealing the detailed drug-target interactions and the underlying mechanisms of orthosteric drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in the past five years. Particularly, an up-to-date analysis is performed on available GPCR structures complexed with synthetic small-molecule allosteric modulators to elucidate key receptor-ligand interactions and allosteric mechanisms. Finally, we highlight how the widespread GPCR-druggable allosteric sites can guide structure- or mechanism-based drug design and propose prospects of designing bitopic ligands for the future therapeutic potential of targeting this receptor family.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingyang Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Protection, Development and Utilization of Medicinal Resources in Liupanshan Area, Ministry of Education, Peptide & Protein Drug Research Center, School of Pharmacy, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, 750004, China
- Medicinal Chemistry and Bioinformatics Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China
| | - Ting Chen
- Department of Cardiology, Changzheng Hospital, Affiliated to Naval Medical University, Shanghai, 200003, China
| | - Xun Lu
- Medicinal Chemistry and Bioinformatics Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China
| | - Xiaobing Lan
- Key Laboratory of Protection, Development and Utilization of Medicinal Resources in Liupanshan Area, Ministry of Education, Peptide & Protein Drug Research Center, School of Pharmacy, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, 750004, China
| | - Ziqiang Chen
- Department of Orthopedics, Changhai Hospital, Affiliated to Naval Medical University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
| | - Shaoyong Lu
- Key Laboratory of Protection, Development and Utilization of Medicinal Resources in Liupanshan Area, Ministry of Education, Peptide & Protein Drug Research Center, School of Pharmacy, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, 750004, China.
- Medicinal Chemistry and Bioinformatics Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China.
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39
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Wang Y, Chen X, Tang N, Guo M, Ai D. Boosting Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma-Specific Drug Discovery Using a Deep Learning Algorithm and Single-Cell Analysis. Int J Mol Sci 2024; 25:4134. [PMID: 38612943 PMCID: PMC11012314 DOI: 10.3390/ijms25074134] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2024] [Revised: 03/26/2024] [Accepted: 04/03/2024] [Indexed: 04/14/2024] Open
Abstract
Clear cell renal carcinoma (ccRCC), the most common subtype of renal cell carcinoma, has the high heterogeneity of a highly complex tumor microenvironment. Existing clinical intervention strategies, such as target therapy and immunotherapy, have failed to achieve good therapeutic effects. In this article, single-cell transcriptome sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from six patients downloaded from the GEO database were adopted to describe the tumor microenvironment (TME) of ccRCC, including its T cells, tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), endothelial cells (ECs), and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). Based on the differential typing of the TME, we identified tumor cell-specific regulatory programs that are mediated by three key transcription factors (TFs), whilst the TF EPAS1/HIF-2α was identified via drug virtual screening through our analysis of ccRCC's protein structure. Then, a combined deep graph neural network and machine learning algorithm were used to select anti-ccRCC compounds from bioactive compound libraries, including the FDA-approved drug library, natural product library, and human endogenous metabolite compound library. Finally, five compounds were obtained, including two FDA-approved drugs (flufenamic acid and fludarabine), one endogenous metabolite, one immunology/inflammation-related compound, and one inhibitor of DNA methyltransferase (N4-methylcytidine, a cytosine nucleoside analogue that, like zebularine, has the mechanism of inhibiting DNA methyltransferase). Based on the tumor microenvironment characteristics of ccRCC, five ccRCC-specific compounds were identified, which would give direction of the clinical treatment for ccRCC patients.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | - Dongmei Ai
- School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China; (Y.W.); (X.C.); (N.T.); (M.G.)
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40
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Łapińska N, Pacławski A, Szlęk J, Mendyk A. SerotoninAI: Serotonergic System Focused, Artificial Intelligence-Based Application for Drug Discovery. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2150-2157. [PMID: 38289046 PMCID: PMC11005036 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01517] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2023] [Revised: 01/02/2024] [Accepted: 01/04/2024] [Indexed: 04/09/2024]
Abstract
SerotoninAI is an innovative web application for scientific purposes focused on the serotonergic system. By leveraging SerotoninAI, researchers can assess the affinity (pKi value) of a molecule to all main serotonin receptors and serotonin transporters based on molecule structure introduced as SMILES. Additionally, the application provides essential insights into critical attributes of potential drugs such as blood-brain barrier penetration and human intestinal absorption. The complexity of the serotonergic system demands advanced tools for accurate predictions, which is a fundamental requirement in drug development. SerotoninAI addresses this need by providing an intuitive user interface that generates predictions of pKi values for the main serotonergic targets. The application is freely available on the Internet at https://serotoninai.streamlit.app/, implemented in Streamlit with all major web browsers supported. Currently, to the best of our knowledge, there is no tool that allows users to access affinity predictions for serotonergic targets without registration or financial obligations. SerotoninAI significantly increases the scope of drug development activities worldwide. The source code of the application is available at https://github.com/nczub/SerotoninAI_streamlit.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalia Łapińska
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 30-688 Kraków, Poland
- Doctoral
School of Medicinal and Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 30-688 Kraków, Poland
| | - Adam Pacławski
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 30-688 Kraków, Poland
| | - Jakub Szlęk
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 30-688 Kraków, Poland
| | - Aleksander Mendyk
- Department
of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 30-688 Kraków, Poland
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41
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Smith Z, Strobel M, Vani BP, Tiwary P. Graph Attention Site Prediction (GrASP): Identifying Druggable Binding Sites Using Graph Neural Networks with Attention. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2637-2644. [PMID: 38453912 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01698] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/09/2024]
Abstract
Identifying and discovering druggable protein binding sites is an important early step in computer-aided drug discovery, but it remains a difficult task where most campaigns rely on a priori knowledge of binding sites from experiments. Here, we present a binding site prediction method called Graph Attention Site Prediction (GrASP) and re-evaluate assumptions in nearly every step in the site prediction workflow from data set preparation to model evaluation. GrASP is able to achieve state-of-the-art performance at recovering binding sites in PDB structures while maintaining a high degree of precision which will minimize wasted computation in downstream tasks such as docking and free energy perturbation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zachary Smith
- Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park 20742, United States
- Biophysics Program, University of Maryland, College Park 20742, United States
| | - Michael Strobel
- Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park 20742, United States
| | - Bodhi P Vani
- Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park 20742, United States
| | - Pratyush Tiwary
- Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park 20742, United States
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park 20742, United States
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42
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Svensson E, Hoedt PJ, Hochreiter S, Klambauer G. HyperPCM: Robust Task-Conditioned Modeling of Drug-Target Interactions. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2539-2553. [PMID: 38185877 PMCID: PMC11005051 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01417] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/04/2023] [Revised: 11/27/2023] [Accepted: 11/27/2023] [Indexed: 01/09/2024]
Abstract
A central problem in drug discovery is to identify the interactions between drug-like compounds and protein targets. Over the past few decades, various quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) and proteo-chemometric (PCM) approaches have been developed to model and predict these interactions. While QSAR approaches solely utilize representations of the drug compound, PCM methods incorporate both representations of the protein target and the drug compound, enabling them to achieve above-chance predictive accuracy on previously unseen protein targets. Both QSAR and PCM approaches have recently been improved by machine learning and deep neural networks, that allow the development of drug-target interaction prediction models from measurement data. However, deep neural networks typically require large amounts of training data and cannot robustly adapt to new tasks, such as predicting interaction for unseen protein targets at inference time. In this work, we propose to use HyperNetworks to efficiently transfer information between tasks during inference and thus to accurately predict drug-target interactions on unseen protein targets. Our HyperPCM method reaches state-of-the-art performance compared to previous methods on multiple well-known benchmarks, including Davis, DUD-E, and a ChEMBL derived data set, and particularly excels at zero-shot inference involving unseen protein targets. Our method, as well as reproducible data preparation, is available at https://github.com/ml-jku/hyper-dti.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emma Svensson
- ELLIS
Unit Linz & Institute for Machine Learning, Johannes Kepler University, Linz 4040, Austria
- Molecular
AI, Discovery Sciences, R&D, AstraZeneca, Gothenburg, 431 83, Sweden
| | - Pieter-Jan Hoedt
- ELLIS
Unit Linz & Institute for Machine Learning, Johannes Kepler University, Linz 4040, Austria
| | - Sepp Hochreiter
- ELLIS
Unit Linz & Institute for Machine Learning, Johannes Kepler University, Linz 4040, Austria
- Institute
of Advanced Research in Artificial Intelligence (IARAI), Vienna 1030, Austria
| | - Günter Klambauer
- ELLIS
Unit Linz & Institute for Machine Learning, Johannes Kepler University, Linz 4040, Austria
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43
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Pang C, Qiao J, Zeng X, Zou Q, Wei L. Deep Generative Models in De Novo Drug Molecule Generation. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2174-2194. [PMID: 37934070 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01496] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2023]
Abstract
The discovery of new drugs has important implications for human health. Traditional methods for drug discovery rely on experiments to optimize the structure of lead molecules, which are time-consuming and high-cost. Recently, artificial intelligence has exhibited promising and efficient performance for drug-like molecule generation. In particular, deep generative models achieve great success in de novo generation of drug-like molecules with desired properties, showing massive potential for novel drug discovery. In this study, we review the recent progress of molecule generation using deep generative models, mainly focusing on molecule representations, public databases, data processing tools, and advanced artificial intelligence based molecule generation frameworks. In particular, we present a comprehensive comparison of state-of-the-art deep generative models for molecule generation and a summary of commonly used molecular design strategies. We identify research gaps and challenges of molecule generation such as the need for better databases, missing 3D information in molecular representation, and the lack of high-precision evaluation metrics. We suggest future directions for molecular generation and drug discovery.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chao Pang
- School of Software, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
- Joint SDU-NTU Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (C-FAIR), Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
| | - Jianbo Qiao
- School of Software, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
- Joint SDU-NTU Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (C-FAIR), Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
| | - Xiangxiang Zeng
- College of Information Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
| | - Quan Zou
- Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China
| | - Leyi Wei
- School of Software, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
- Joint SDU-NTU Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (C-FAIR), Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
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44
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Hull A, Atilano ML, Gergi L, Kinghorn KJ. Lysosomal storage, impaired autophagy and innate immunity in Gaucher and Parkinson's diseases: insights for drug discovery. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2024; 379:20220381. [PMID: 38368939 PMCID: PMC10874704 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2023] [Accepted: 11/08/2023] [Indexed: 02/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Impairment of autophagic-lysosomal pathways is increasingly being implicated in Parkinson's disease (PD). GBA1 mutations cause the lysosomal storage disorder Gaucher disease (GD) and are the commonest known genetic risk factor for PD. GBA1 mutations have been shown to cause autophagic-lysosomal impairment. Defective autophagic degradation of unwanted cellular constituents is associated with several pathologies, including loss of normal protein homeostasis, particularly of α-synuclein, and innate immune dysfunction. The latter is observed both peripherally and centrally in PD and GD. Here, we will discuss the mechanistic links between autophagy and immune dysregulation, and the possible role of these pathologies in communication between the gut and brain in these disorders. Recent work in a fly model of neuronopathic GD (nGD) revealed intestinal autophagic defects leading to gastrointestinal dysfunction and immune activation. Rapamycin treatment partially reversed the autophagic block and reduced immune activity, in association with increased survival and improved locomotor performance. Alterations in the gut microbiome are a critical driver of neuroinflammation, and studies have revealed that eradication of the microbiome in nGD fly and mouse models of PD ameliorate brain inflammation. Following these observations, lysosomal-autophagic pathways, innate immune signalling and microbiome dysbiosis are discussed as potential therapeutic targets in PD and GD. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Understanding the endo-lysosomal network in neurodegeneration'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Hull
- Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, Institute of Healthy Ageing, Darwin Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Magda L Atilano
- Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, Institute of Healthy Ageing, Darwin Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Laith Gergi
- Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, Institute of Healthy Ageing, Darwin Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Kerri J Kinghorn
- Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, Institute of Healthy Ageing, Darwin Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
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45
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Kim H, Lee K, Kim C, Lim J, Kim WY. DFRscore: Deep Learning-Based Scoring of Synthetic Complexity with Drug-Focused Retrosynthetic Analysis for High-Throughput Virtual Screening. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2432-2444. [PMID: 37651152 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01134] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/01/2023]
Abstract
Recently emerging generative AI models enable us to produce a vast number of compounds for potential applications. While they can provide novel molecular structures, the synthetic feasibility of the generated molecules is often questioned. To address this issue, a few recent studies have attempted to use deep learning models to estimate the synthetic accessibility of many molecules rapidly. However, retrosynthetic analysis tools used to train the models rely on reaction templates automatically extracted from a large reaction database that are not domain-specific and may exhibit low chemical correctness. To overcome this limitation, we introduce DFRscore (Drug-Focused Retrosynthetic score), a deep learning-based approach for a more practical assessment of synthetic accessibility in drug discovery. The DFRscore model is trained exclusively on drug-focused reactions, providing a predicted number of minimally required synthetic steps for each compound. This approach enables practitioners to filter out compounds that do not meet their desired level of synthetic accessibility at an early stage of high-throughput virtual screening for accelerated drug discovery. The proposed strategy can be easily adapted to other domains by adjusting the synthesis planning setup of the reaction templates and starting materials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hyeongwoo Kim
- Department of Chemistry, KAIST, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
| | - Kyunghoon Lee
- Department of Chemistry, KAIST, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
| | - Chansu Kim
- Department of Chemistry, KAIST, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
| | - Jaechang Lim
- HITS Incorporation, 124 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06234, Republic of Korea
| | - Woo Youn Kim
- Department of Chemistry, KAIST, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
- HITS Incorporation, 124 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06234, Republic of Korea
- AI Institute, KAIST, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
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46
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Marin E, Kovaleva M, Kadukova M, Mustafin K, Khorn P, Rogachev A, Mishin A, Guskov A, Borshchevskiy V. Regression-Based Active Learning for Accessible Acceleration of Ultra-Large Library Docking. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2612-2623. [PMID: 38157481 PMCID: PMC11005039 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01661] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2023] [Revised: 11/28/2023] [Accepted: 12/04/2023] [Indexed: 01/03/2024]
Abstract
Structure-based drug discovery is a process for both hit finding and optimization that relies on a validated three-dimensional model of a target biomolecule, used to rationalize the structure-function relationship for this particular target. An ultralarge virtual screening approach has emerged recently for rapid discovery of high-affinity hit compounds, but it requires substantial computational resources. This study shows that active learning with simple linear regression models can accelerate virtual screening, retrieving up to 90% of the top-1% of the docking hit list after docking just 10% of the ligands. The results demonstrate that it is unnecessary to use complex models, such as deep learning approaches, to predict the imprecise results of ligand docking with a low sampling depth. Furthermore, we explore active learning meta-parameters and find that constant batch size models with a simple ensembling method provide the best ligand retrieval rate. Finally, our approach is validated on the ultralarge size virtual screening data set, retrieving 70% of the top-0.05% of ligands after screening only 2% of the library. Altogether, this work provides a computationally accessible approach for accelerated virtual screening that can serve as a blueprint for the future design of low-compute agents for exploration of the chemical space via large-scale accelerated docking. With recent breakthroughs in protein structure prediction, this method can significantly increase accessibility for the academic community and aid in the rapid discovery of high-affinity hit compounds for various targets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Egor Marin
- Research
Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia
| | - Margarita Kovaleva
- Research
Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia
| | - Maria Kadukova
- Research
Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia
- University
Grenoble Alpes, Inria, CNRS, Grenoble INP, LJK, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Khalid Mustafin
- Research
Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia
| | - Polina Khorn
- Research
Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia
| | - Andrey Rogachev
- Research
Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia
- Joint
Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna 141980, Russian
Federation
| | - Alexey Mishin
- Research
Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia
| | - Albert Guskov
- Groningen
Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Valentin Borshchevskiy
- Research
Center for Molecular Mechanisms of Aging and Age-related Diseases, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia
- Joint
Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna 141980, Russian
Federation
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47
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Mqawass G, Popov P. graphLambda: Fusion Graph Neural Networks for Binding Affinity Prediction. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2323-2330. [PMID: 38366974 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00771] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/19/2024]
Abstract
Predicting the binding affinity of protein-ligand complexes is crucial for computer-aided drug discovery (CADD) and the identification of potential drug candidates. The deep learning-based scoring functions have emerged as promising predictors of binding constants. Building on recent advancements in graph neural networks, we present graphLambda for protein-ligand binding affinity prediction, which utilizes graph convolutional, attention, and isomorphism blocks to enhance the predictive capabilities. The graphLambda model exhibits superior performance across CASF16 and CSAR HiQ NRC benchmarks and demonstrates robustness with respect to different types of train-validation set partitions. The development of graphLambda underscores the potential of graph neural networks in advancing binding affinity prediction models, contributing to more effective CADD methodologies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ghaith Mqawass
- Faculty of Computer Science, University of Vienna, Vienna A-1090, Austria
- UniVie Doctoral School Computer Science, University of Vienna, Vienna A-1090, Austria
| | - Petr Popov
- Tetra-d, Rheinweg 9, Schaffhausen 8200, Switzerland
- School of Science, Constructor University Bremen gGmbH, Bremen 28759, Germany
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48
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An H, Liu X, Cai W, Shao X. Explainable Graph Neural Networks with Data Augmentation for Predicting p Ka of C-H Acids. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2383-2392. [PMID: 37706462 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00958] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/15/2023]
Abstract
The pKa of C-H acids is an important parameter in the fields of organic synthesis, drug discovery, and materials science. However, the prediction of pKa is still a great challenge due to the limit of experimental data and the lack of chemical insight. Here, a new model for predicting the pKa values of C-H acids is proposed on the basis of graph neural networks (GNNs) and data augmentation. A message passing unit (MPU) was used to extract the topological and target-related information from the molecular graph data, and a readout layer was utilized to retrieve the information on the ionization site C atom. The retrieved information then was adopted to predict pKa by a fully connected network. Furthermore, to increase the diversity of the training data, a knowledge-infused data augmentation technique was established by replacing the H atoms in a molecule with substituents exhibiting different electronic effects. The MPU was pretrained with the augmented data. The efficacy of data augmentation was confirmed by visualizing the distribution of compounds with different substituents and by classifying compounds. The explainability of the model was studied by examining the change of pKa values when a specific atom was masked. This explainability was used to identify the key substituents for pKa. The model was evaluated on two data sets from the iBonD database. Dataset1 includes the experimental pKa values of C-H acids measured in DMSO, while dataset2 comprises the pKa values measured in water. The results show that the knowledge-infused data augmentation technique greatly improves the predictive accuracy of the model, especially when the number of samples is small.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hongle An
- Research Center for Analytical Sciences, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
- Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations, Tianjin 300192, China
| | - Xuyang Liu
- Research Center for Analytical Sciences, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
- Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations, Tianjin 300192, China
| | - Wensheng Cai
- Research Center for Analytical Sciences, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
- Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations, Tianjin 300192, China
| | - Xueguang Shao
- Research Center for Analytical Sciences, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
- Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations, Tianjin 300192, China
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49
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Zhang Z, Bian Y, Xie A, Han P, Zhou S. Can Pretrained Models Really Learn Better Molecular Representations for AI-Aided Drug Discovery? J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2921-2930. [PMID: 38145387 PMCID: PMC11005046 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01707] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2023] [Revised: 11/29/2023] [Accepted: 11/29/2023] [Indexed: 12/26/2023]
Abstract
Self-supervised pretrained models are gaining increasingly more popularity in AI-aided drug discovery, leading to more and more pretrained models with the promise that they can extract better feature representations for molecules. Yet, the quality of learned representations has not been fully explored. In this work, inspired by the two phenomena of Activity Cliffs (ACs) and Scaffold Hopping (SH) in traditional Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship analysis, we propose a method named Representation-Property Relationship Analysis (RePRA) to evaluate the quality of the representations extracted by the pretrained model and visualize the relationship between the representations and properties. The concepts of ACs and SH are generalized from the structure-activity context to the representation-property context, and the underlying principles of RePRA are analyzed theoretically. Two scores are designed to measure the generalized ACs and SH detected by RePRA, and therefore, the quality of representations can be evaluated. In experiments, representations of molecules from 10 target tasks generated by 7 pretrained models are analyzed. The results indicate that the state-of-the-art pretrained models can overcome some shortcomings of canonical Extended-Connectivity FingerPrints, while the correlation between the basis of the representation space and specific molecular substructures are not explicit. Thus, some representations could be even worse than the canonical fingerprints. Our method enables researchers to evaluate the quality of molecular representations generated by their proposed self-supervised pretrained models. And our findings can guide the community to develop better pretraining techniques to regularize the occurrence of ACs and SH.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ziqiao Zhang
- Shanghai
Key Lab of Intelligent Information Processing, and School of Computer
Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China
| | | | - Ailin Xie
- Shanghai
Key Lab of Intelligent Information Processing, and School of Computer
Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China
| | - Pengju Han
- Shanghai
Key Lab of Intelligent Information Processing, and School of Computer
Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China
| | - Shuigeng Zhou
- Shanghai
Key Lab of Intelligent Information Processing, and School of Computer
Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China
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50
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Roggia M, Natale B, Amendola G, Di Maro S, Cosconati S. Streamlining Large Chemical Library Docking with Artificial Intelligence: the PyRMD2Dock Approach. J Chem Inf Model 2024; 64:2143-2149. [PMID: 37552222 PMCID: PMC11005044 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00647] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2023] [Indexed: 08/09/2023]
Abstract
The present contribution introduces a novel computational protocol called PyRMD2Dock, which combines the Ligand-Based Virtual Screening (LBVS) tool PyRMD with the popular docking software AutoDock-GPU (AD4-GPU) to enhance the throughput of virtual screening campaigns for drug discovery. By implementing PyRMD2Dock, we demonstrate that it is possible to rapidly screen massive chemical databases and identify those with the highest predicted binding affinity to a target protein. Our benchmarking and screening experiments illustrate the predictive power and speed of PyRMD2Dock and highlight its potential to accelerate the discovery of novel drug candidates. Overall, this study showcases the value of combining AI-powered LBVS tools with docking software to enable effective and high-throughput virtual screening of ultralarge molecular databases in drug discovery. PyRMD and the PyRMD2Dock protocol are freely available on GitHub (https://github.com/cosconatilab/PyRMD) as an open-source tool.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michele Roggia
- DiSTABiF, University
of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Via Vivaldi 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy
| | - Benito Natale
- DiSTABiF, University
of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Via Vivaldi 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy
| | - Giorgio Amendola
- DiSTABiF, University
of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Via Vivaldi 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy
| | - Salvatore Di Maro
- DiSTABiF, University
of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Via Vivaldi 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy
| | - Sandro Cosconati
- DiSTABiF, University
of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Via Vivaldi 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy
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