Discovery of novel antimalarial compounds enabled by QSAR-based virtual screening.

Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) models have been developed for a data set of 3133 compounds defined as either active or inactive against P. falciparum. Because the data set was strongly biased toward inactive compounds, different sampling approaches were employed to balance the ratio of actives versus inactives, and models were rigorously validated using both internal and external validation approaches. The balanced accuracy for assessing the antimalarial activities of 70 external compounds was between 87% and 100% depending on the approach used to balance the data set. Virtual screening of the ChemBridge database using QSAR models identified 176 putative antimalarial compounds that were submitted for experimental validation, along with 42 putative inactives as negative controls. Twenty five (14.2%) computational hits were found to have antimalarial activities with minimal cytotoxicity to mammalian cells, while all 42 putative inactives were confirmed experimentally. Structural inspection of confirmed active hits revealed novel chemical scaffolds, which could be employed as starting points to discover novel antimalarial agents.

Studies of microwave-enhanced Suzuki-Miyaura vinylation of electron-rich sterically hindered substrates utilizing potassium vinyltrifluoroborate.

The Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of sterically hindered and electron-rich ortho,ortho'-substituted aryl halides with potassium vinyltrifluoroborate utilizing microwave irradiation has been conducted while adjusting solvent ratio, irradiation time, and catalyst loading to find optimal conditions. Coupling of benzyl 3,5-bis(benzyloxy)-4-bromobenzoate leads to a mixture of the desired styrene derivative, and the reduced product. 4-Bromo-1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene, methyl 4-bromo-3,5-dimethoxybenzoate, and mesitylene bromide were also coupled to test the breadth and scope of this methodology. Of these substrates tested only 4-bromo-1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene was not vinylated successfully, which is believed to be due to the electron rich nature of this system.