Harnessing pyrrolidine iminosugars into dimeric structures for the rapid discovery of divalent glycosidase inhibitors.

ABSTRACT

The synthesis of three libraries (1a-l, 1a'-l' and 2a-l) of dimeric iminosugars through CuAAC reaction between three different alkynyl pyrrolidines and a set of diazides was carried out. The resulting crude dimers were screened in situ against two α-fucosidases (libraries 1a-l and 1a'-l') and one ß-galactosidase (2a-l). This method is pioneer in the search of divalent glycosidase inhibitors. It has allowed the rapid identification of dimer 1i as the best inhibitor of α-fucosidases from bovine kidney (Ki = 0.15 nM) and Homo sapiens (Ki = 60 nM), and dimer 2e as the best inhibitor of ß-galactosidase from bovine liver (Ki = 5.8 µM). In order to evaluate a possible divalent effect in the inhibition, the synthesis and biological analysis of the reference monomers were also performed. Divalent effect was only detected in the inhibition of bovine liver ß-galactosidase by dimer 2e.