Ligand-based discovery of coronavirus main protease inhibitors using MACAW molecular embeddings.
J Enzyme Inhib Med Chem
; 38(1): 24-35, 2023 Dec.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36305272
ABSTRACT
Ligand-based drug design methods are thought to require large experimental datasets to become useful for virtual screening. In this work, we propose a computational strategy to design novel inhibitors of coronavirus main protease, Mpro. The pipeline integrates publicly available screening and binding affinity data in a two-stage machine-learning model using the recent MACAW embeddings. Once trained, the model can be deployed to rapidly screen large libraries of molecules in silico. Several hundred thousand compounds were virtually screened and 10 of them were selected for experimental testing. From these 10 compounds, 8 showed a clear inhibitory effect on recombinant Mpro, with half-maximal inhibitory concentration values (IC50) in the range 0.18-18.82 µM. Cellular assays were also conducted to evaluate cytotoxic, haemolytic, and antiviral properties. A promising lead compound against coronavirus Mpro was identified with dose-dependent inhibition of virus infectivity and minimal toxicity on human MRC-5 cells.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Bases de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Proteases 3C de Coronavírus
/
COVID-19
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Enzyme Inhib Med Chem
Assunto da revista:
BIOQUIMICA
/
QUIMICA
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article