Innovative in silico approaches to address avian flu using grid technology.

The recent years have seen the emergence of diseases which have spread very quickly all around the world either through human travels like SARS or animal migration like avian flu. Among the biggest challenges raised by infectious emerging diseases, one is related to the constant mutation of the viruses which turns them into continuously moving targets for drug and vaccine discovery. Another challenge is related to the early detection and surveillance of the diseases as new cases can appear just anywhere due to the globalization of exchanges and the circulation of people and animals around the earth, as recently demonstrated by the avian flu epidemics. For 3 years now, a collaboration of teams in Europe and Asia has been exploring some innovative in silico approaches to better tackle avian flu taking advantage of the very large computing resources available on international grid infrastructures. Grids were used to study the impact of mutations on the effectiveness of existing drugs against H5N1 and to find potentially new leads active on mutated strains. Grids allow also the integration of distributed data in a completely secured way. The paper proposes new approaches for the integration of existing data sources towards a global surveillance network for molecular epidemiology and in silico drug discovery.

Inhibition of the severe acute respiratory syndrome 3CL protease by peptidomimetic alpha,beta-unsaturated esters.

The proteolytic processing of polyproteins by the 3CL protease of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus is essential for the viral propagation. A series of tripeptide alpha,beta-unsaturated esters and ketomethylene isosteres, including AG7088, are synthesized and assayed to target the 3CL protease. Though AG7088 is inactive (IC50 > 100 microM), the ketomethylene isosteres and tripeptide alpha,beta-unsaturated esters containing both P1 and P2 phenylalanine residues show modest inhibitory activity (IC50 = 11-39 microM). The Phe-Phe dipeptide inhibitors 18a-e are designed on the basis of computer modeling of the enzyme-inhibitor complex. The most potent inhibitor 18c with an inhibition constant of 0.52 microM is obtained by condensation of the Phe-Phe dipeptide alpha,beta-unsaturated ester with 4-(dimethylamino)cinnamic acid. The cell-based assays also indicate that 18c is a nontoxic anti-SARS agent with an EC50 value of 0.18 microM.

Discovery of potent anilide inhibitors against the severe acute respiratory syndrome 3CL protease.

A diversified library of peptide anilides was prepared, and their inhibition activities against the SARS-CoV 3CL protease were examined by a fluorogenic tetradecapeptide substrate. The most potent inhibitor is an anilide derived from 2-chloro-4-nitroaniline, l-phenylalanine and 4-(dimethylamino)benzoic acid. This anilide is a competitive inhibitor of the SARS-CoV 3CL protease with K(i) = 0.03 muM. The molecular docking experiment indicates that the P1 residue of this anilide inhibitor is distant from the nucleophilic SH of Cys145 in the active site.