Design of HIV protease inhibitors based on inorganic polyhedral metallacarboranes.

ABSTRACT

HIV protease (HIV PR) is a primary target for anti-HIV drug design. We have previously identified and characterized substituted metallacarboranes as a new class of HIV protease inhibitors. In a structure-guided drug design effort, we connected the two cobalt bis(dicarbollide) clusters with a linker to substituted ammonium group and obtained a set of compounds based on a lead formula [H(2)N-(8-(C(2)H(4)O)(2)-1,2-C(2)B(9)H(10))(1',2'-C(2)B(9)H(11))-3,3'-Co)(2)]Na. We explored inhibition properties of these compounds with various substitutions, determined the HIV PRinhibitor crystal structure, and computationally explored the conformational space of the linker. Our results prove the capacity of linker-substituted dual-cage cobalt bis(dicarbollides) as lead compounds for design of more potent inhibitors of HIV PR.