Preclinical evaluation of the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitor RAY1216 shows improved pharmacokinetics compared with nirmatrelvir.

Although vaccines are available for SARS-CoV-2, antiviral drugs such as nirmatrelvir are still needed, particularly for individuals in whom vaccines are less effective, such as the immunocompromised, to prevent severe COVID-19. Here we report an α-ketoamide-based peptidomimetic inhibitor of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro), designated RAY1216. Enzyme inhibition kinetic analysis shows that RAY1216 has an inhibition constant of 8.4 nM and suggests that it dissociates about 12 times slower from Mpro compared with nirmatrelvir. The crystal structure of the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro:RAY1216 complex shows that RAY1216 covalently binds to the catalytic Cys145 through the α-ketoamide group. In vitro and using human ACE2 transgenic mouse models, RAY1216 shows antiviral activities against SARS-CoV-2 variants comparable to those of nirmatrelvir. It also shows improved pharmacokinetics in mice and rats, suggesting that RAY1216 could be used without ritonavir, which is co-administered with nirmatrelvir. RAY1216 has been approved as a single-component drug named 'leritrelvir' for COVID-19 treatment in China.

Automatically Aligned and Environment-Friendly Twisted Stacking Terahertz Chiral Metasurface with Giant Circular Dichroism for Rapid Biosensing.

Chiral metasurfaces are capable of generating a huge superchiral field, which has great potential in optoelectronics and biosensing. However, the conventional fabrication process suffers greatly from time consumption, high cost, and difficult multilayer alignment, which hinder its commercial application. Herein, we propose a twisted stacking carbon-based terahertz (THz) chiral metasurface (TCM) based on laser-induced graphene (LIG) technology. By repeating a two-step process of sticking a polyimide film, followed by laser direct writing, the two layers of the TCM are aligned automatically in the fabrication. Laser manufacturing also brings such high processing speed that a TCM with a size of 15 × 15 mm can be prepared in 60 s. In addition, due to the greater dissipation of LIG than that of metals in the THz band, a giant circular dichroism (CD) of +99.5 to -99.6% is experimentally realized. The THz biosensing of bovine serum albumin enhanced by the proposed TCMs is then demonstrated. A wide sensing range (0.5-50 mg mL-1) and a good sensitivity [ΔCD: 2.09% (mg mL-1)-1, Δf: 0.0034 THz (mg mL-1)-1] are proved. This LIG-based TCM provides an environment-friendly platform for chiral research and has great application potential in rapid and low-cost commercial biosensing.

Discovery of novel bicyclic[3.3.0]proline peptidyl α-ketoamides as potent 3CL-protease inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2.

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has caused global crisis on health and economics. The multiple drug-drug interaction risk associated with ritonavir warrants specialized assessment before using Paxlovid. Here we report a multiple-round SAR study to provide a novel bicyclic[3.3.0]proline peptidyl α-ketoamide compound 4a, which is endowed with excellent antiviral activities and pharmacokinetic properties. Also, in vivo HCoV-OC43 neonatal mice model demonstrated compound 4a has good in vivo efficacy. Based on these properties, compound 4a worth further SAR optimization with the goal to develop compounds with better pharmacokinetic properties and finally to realize single agent efficacy in human.

Enhanced terahertz focusing for a graphene-enabled active metalens.

Graphene-based terahertz (THz) metasurfaces have the advantages of ultra-small thickness, electrical tunability, and fast tuning speed. However, many such structures suffer low efficiency, especially for transmissive devices. Here we propose a hybrid structure for focusing THz waves with tunability and enhanced focusing efficiency, which is composed of a graphene-loaded metallic metasurface sandwiched by two mutually orthogonal gratings. Experimental results show that due to the multi-reflection between the metasurface layer and the grating layer, the focusing efficiency is enhanced by 1.8 times, and the focal length of the metalens is increased by 0.61 mm when the applied gate voltage on the graphene is increased from 0 V to 1.4 V. We hope the proposed structure may open a new avenue for reconfigurable THz metasurfaces with high efficiencies.

Development of DHQ-based chemical biology probe to profile cellular targets for HBV.

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection has been a serious public health burden worldwide. Current anti-HBV therapies could not eliminate HBV ultimately. Considering the characteristics of HBV, it is impossible to be entirely cured based on current therapies. Therefore, it is urgently needed to develop novel therapeutic agents with new mechanism of action. The dihydroquinolizinone (DHQ) derivatives exhibited potent anti-HBV activity by decreasing HBV DNA and HBsAg level in an obscure mechanism of action. In this study, we have optimized the DHQ scaffold, developed the photoaffinity probe, with which to identify potential binding proteins.

3-((R)-4-(((R)-6-(2-Bromo-4-fluorophenyl)-5-(ethoxycarbonyl)-2-(thiazol-2-yl)-3,6-dihydropyrimidin-4-yl)methyl)morpholin-2-yl)propanoic Acid (HEC72702), a Novel Hepatitis B Virus Capsid Inhibitor Based on Clinical Candidate GLS4.

The inhibition of hepatitis B virus (HBV) capsid assembly is a novel strategy for the development of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) therapeutics. On the basis of the preclinical properties and clinical results of GLS4, we carried out further investigation to seek a better candidate compound with appropriate anti-HBV potency, reduced hERG activity, decreased CYP enzyme induction, and improved pharmacokinetic (PK) properties. To this end, we have successfully found that morpholine carboxyl analogues with comparable anti-HBV activities to that of GLS4 showed decreased hERG activities, but they displayed strong CYP3A4 induction in a concentration-dependent manner, except for morpholine propionic acid analogues. After several rounds of modification, compound 58 (HEC72702), which had an (R)-morpholine-2-propionic acid at the C6 position of its dihydropyrimidine core ring, was found to display no induction of the CYP1A2, CYP3A4, or CYP2B6 enzyme at the high concentration of 10 µM. In particular, it demonstrated a good systemic exposure and high oral bioavailability and achieved a viral-load reduction greater than 2 log in a hydrodynamic-injected (HDI) HBV mouse model and has now been selected for further development.

Organocatalytic Highly Enantioselective Substitution of 3-(1-Tosylalkyl)indoles with Oxindoles Enables the First Total Synthesis of (+)-Trigolutes B.

A highly enantioselective organocatalytic substitution of 3-(1-tosylalkyl)indoles with oxindoles has been established by using chiral bifunctional organocatalysts, providing an efficient entry to multiply functionalized 3,3'-disubstituted oxindoles, and was exploited as the key step to enable the first asymmetric total synthesis of optically pure (+)-trigolutes B to be accomplished in a concise manner, within seven steps with an 18% overall yield.

Chiral gold complex-catalyzed hetero-Diels-Alder reaction of diazenes: highly enantioselective and general for dienes.

A chiral gold(I) complex-catalyzed highly regio- and enantioselective azo hetero-Diels-Alder reaction has been developed. The chiral gold(I) complex acting as a Lewis acid exhibits high efficiency in the activation of urea-based diazene dienophiles. Moreover, this chiral gold catalyst also rendered a cascade intramolecular enyne cycloisomerization/asymmetric azo-HDA reaction.