Discovery of potent iminoheterocycle BACE1 inhibitors.

The synthesis of a series of iminoheterocycles and their structure-activity relationships (SAR) as inhibitors of the aspartyl protease BACE1 will be detailed. An effort to access the S3 subsite directly from the S1 subsite initially yielded compounds with sub-micromolar potency. A subset of compounds from this effort unexpectedly occupied a different binding site and displayed excellent BACE1 affinities. Select compounds from this subset acutely lowered Aß40 levels upon subcutaneous and oral administration to rats.

Structure based design of iminohydantoin BACE1 inhibitors: identification of an orally available, centrally active BACE1 inhibitor.

From an initial lead 1, a structure-based design approach led to identification of a novel, high-affinity iminohydantoin BACE1 inhibitor that lowers CNS-derived Aß following oral administration to rats. Herein we report SAR development in the S3 and F' subsites of BACE1 for this series, the synthetic approaches employed in this effort, and in vivo data for the optimized compound.

Cyclic hydroxyamidines as amide isosteres: discovery of oxadiazolines and oxadiazines as potent and highly efficacious γ-secretase modulators in vivo.

Cyclic hydroxyamidines were designed and validated as isosteric replacements of the amide functionality. Compounds with these structural motifs were found to be metabolically stable and to possess highly desirable pharmacokinetic profiles. These designs were applied in the identification of γ-secretase modulators leading to highly efficacious agents for reduction of central nervous system Aß(42) in various animal models.

Fluorescence polarization assay and inhibitor design for MDM2/p53 interaction.

MDM2 is an important negative regulator of the tumor suppressor protein p53 which regulates the expression of many genes including MDM2. The delicate balance of this autoregulatory loop is crucial for the maintenance of the genome and control of the cell cycle and apoptosis. MDM2 hyperactivity, due to amplification/overexpression or mutational inactivation of the ARF locus, inhibits the function of wild-type p53 and can lead to the development of a wide variety of cancers. Thus, the development of anti-MDM2 therapies may restore normal p53 function in tumor cells and induce growth suppression and apoptosis. We report here a novel high-throughput fluorescence polarization binding assay and its application in rank ordering small-molecule inhibitors that block the binding of MDM2 to a p53-derived fluorescent peptide.

Application of the lambda-dynamics method to evaluate the relative binding free energies of inhibitors to HCV protease.

The lambda-dynamics method was used to calculate the relative binding free energies of inhibitors to the hepatitis C virus (HCV) protease. A total of seven HCV protease p-side product inhibitors were used in this study. The inhibitors are 6-mer peptides spanning P6-P1 (Ac-Asp-d-Glu-Leu-Ile-Cha-P1-CO(2)H). For this protein, S1 is a major hydrophobic pocket for binding. Binding of various residues to this pocket was investigated through free energy simulations and experimental inhibition constants. Several 300 ps lambda-dynamics simulations in explicit solvent were performed. The relative binding free energy was estimated from these simulations. From a single simulation, the inhibitors can be correctly classified into highly potent and weakly potent groups. The multiple simulations give an accurate rank ordering of inhibitor potency; computed and experimental binding free energies agree with 0.6 kcal/mol for five of the seven inhibitors. In addition, free energy perturbation (FEP) calculations were carried out to validate the results from lambda-dynamics. A total of 6 ligand pairs were compared. For each pair, 5-11 windows were used to map one ligand to the other. The cumulative simulation time was over 2 ns for each ligand pair. For four of the six ligand pairs, the lambda-dynamics free energy difference fits better than the FEP difference to the experimental value. The fact that the lambda-dynamics method achieved similar results in only a fraction of the total simulation time for FEP further demonstrates the robustness of the lambda-dynamics method.

Azapeptides as inhibitors of the hepatitis C virus NS3 serine protease.

Truncation and substitution SAR studies of azapeptide-based inhibitors of the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3 serine protease have been performed. These azapeptides were designed from the HCV polyprotein's NS5A-NS5B trans cleavage junction and contained an azaamino acid residue at the P1 position. These azapeptides exhibited predominantly non-acylating, competitive inhibition, contrary to classical azapeptides.