Structure-based lead optimization to improve antiviral potency and ADMET properties of phenyl-1H-pyrrole-carboxamide entry inhibitors targeted to HIV-1 gp120

  • Eur J Med Chem. 2018 Jun 25;154:367-391. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2018.04.062.
Francesca Curreli  1 Dmitry S Belov  2 Young Do Kwon  3 Ranjith Ramesh  1 Anna M Furimsky  4 Kathleen O'Loughlin  4 Patricia C Byrge  4 Lalitha V Iyer  4 Jon C Mirsalis  4 Alexander V Kurkin  2 Andrea Altieri  2 Asim K Debnath  5
Affiliations
  • 1. Laboratory of Molecular Modeling & Drug Design, Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute, New York Blood Center, 310 E 67th Street, New York, NY 10065, USA.
  • 2. EDASA Scientific, Scientific Park, Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory Bld. 75, 77-101b, 119992 Moscow, Russia.
  • 3. Structural Biology Section, Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
  • 4. SRI International, Biosciences Division, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
  • 5. Laboratory of Molecular Modeling & Drug Design, Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute, New York Blood Center, 310 E 67th Street, New York, NY 10065, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
Abstract

We are continuing our concerted effort to optimize our first lead entry antagonist, NBD-11021, which targets the Phe43 cavity of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein gp120, to improve Antiviral potency and ADMET properties. In this report, we present a structure-based approach that helped us to generate working hypotheses to modify further a recently reported advanced lead entry antagonist, NBD-14107, which showed significant improvement in Antiviral potency when tested in a single-cycle assay against a large panel of Env-pseudotyped viruses. We report here the synthesis of twenty-nine new compounds and evaluation of their Antiviral activity in a single-cycle and multi-cycle assay to derive a comprehensive structure-activity relationship (SAR). We have selected three inhibitors with the high selectivity index for testing against a large panel of 55 Env-pseudotyped viruses representing a diverse set of clinical isolates of different subtypes. The Antiviral activity of one of these potent inhibitors, 55 (NBD-14189), against some clinical isolates was as low as 63 nM. We determined the sensitivity of CD4-binding site mutated-pseudoviruses to these inhibitors to confirm that they target HIV-1 gp120. Furthermore, we assessed their ADMET properties and compared them to the clinical candidate attachment inhibitor, BMS-626529. The ADMET data indicate that some of these new inhibitors have comparable ADMET properties to BMS-626529 and can be optimized further to potential clinical candidates.

Keywords
ADMET; Broad spectrum; ENV-pseudovirus; HIV-1; Structure-activity relationship (SAR); Virus entry antagonist; “CH(2)OH” switch hypothesis.
Products