Chenzhong Liao

Software and resources for computational medicinal chemistry

Computer-aided drug design plays a vital role in drug discovery and development and has become an indispensable tool in the pharmaceutical industry. Computational medicinal chemists can take advantage of all kinds of software and resources in the computer-aided drug design field for the purposes of discovering and optimizing biologically active compounds. This article reviews software and other resources related to computer-aided drug design approaches, putting particular emphasis on structure-based drug design, ligand-based drug design, chemical databases and chemoinformatics tools.

Total synthesis and biological evaluation of largazole and derivatives with promising selectivity for cancers cells.

The efficient total synthesis of the natural substance largazole is described. Using this strategy, a small library of largazole analogs was developed. Structure-activity relationship studies suggested that the geometry of the alkene in the side chain is critical. While the largazoles analogues with trans-alkene are potent for the antiproliferative effect, those with cis-alkene are completely inactive. Most importantly, replacement of valine with tyrosine in largazole increased selectivity toward human cancer cells over human normal cells more than 100-fold.

Selective Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors with Anticancer Activity

HDAC inhibitors (HDACIs), which can be used to kill cancer cells through inhibiting histone deacetylase activity or altering the structure of chromatin, have emerged as efficacious agents in the treatment of cancer. With SAHA, FK228, belinostat and panobinostat approved by the FDA, displaying satisfying activity in both haematological and solid tumors of various tissues, efforts to create selective HDACIs have been attracted attention over the past several years. Herein, we mainly review the progress of selective HDAC inhibitors including class-selective and isoform-selective HDAC inhibitors.

Authentic HIV-1 integrase inhibitors

HIV-1 integrase (IN) is indispensable for HIV-1 replication and has become a validated target for developing anti-AIDS agents. In two decades of development of IN inhibition-based anti-HIV therapeutics, a significant number of compounds were identified as IN inhibitors, but only some of them showed antiviral activity. This article reviews a number of patented HIV-1 IN inhibitors, especially those that possess high selectivity for the strand transfer reaction. These compounds generally have a polar coplanar moiety, which is assumed to chelate two magnesium ions in the binding site. Resistance to those compounds, when given to patients, can develop as a result of IN mutations. We refer to those compounds as authentic IN inhibitors. Continued drug development has so far delivered one authentic IN inhibitor to the market (raltegravir in 2007). Current and future attention will be focused on the development of novel authentic IN inhibitors with the goal of overcoming viral resistance.

Discovery of Novel Class I Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors with Promising in Vitro and in Vivo Antitumor Activities

A successful structure-based design of novel cyclic depsipeptides that selectively target class I HDAC isoforms is described. Compound 11 has an IC50 of 2.78 nM for binding to the HDAC1 protein, and the prodrugs 12 and 13 also exhibit promising antiproliferative activities in the nanomolar range against various cancer cell lines. Compounds 12 and 13 show more than 20-fold selectivity toward human cancer cells over human normal cells in comparison with romidepsin (FK228), demonstrating low probability of toxic side effects. In addition, compound 13 exhibits excellent in vivo anticancer activities in a human prostate carcinoma (Du145) xenograft model with no observed toxicity. Thus, prodrug 13 has therapeutic potential as a new class of anticancer agent for further clinical translation.

Computer tools in the discovery of HIV-1 integrase inhibitors

Computer-aided drug design (CADD) methodologies have made great advances and contributed significantly to the discovery and/or optimization of many clinically used drugs in recent years. CADD tools have likewise been applied to the discovery of inhibitors of HIV-1 integrase, a difficult and worthwhile target for the development of efficient anti-HIV drugs. This article reviews the application of CADD tools, including pharmacophore search, quantitative structure-activity relationships, model building of integrase complexed with viral DNA and quantum-chemical studies in the discovery of HIV-1 integrase inhibitors. Different structurally diverse integrase inhibitors have been identified by, or with significant help from, various CADD tools.

Metalloprotein Inhibitors for the Treatment of Human Diseases

Metalloproteins have attracted momentous attentions for the treatment of many human diseases, including cancer, HIV, hypertension, etc. This article reviews the progresses that have been made in the field of drug development of metalloprotein inhibitors, putting emphasis on the targets of carbonic anhydrase, histone deacetylase, angiotensin converting enzyme, and HIV-1 integrase. Many other important metalloproteins are also briefly discussed. The binding and coordination modes of different marketed metalloprotein inhibitors are stated, providing insights to design novel metal binding groups and further novel inhibitors for metalloproteins.

Discovery of thioether-bridged cyclic pentapeptides binding to Grb2-SH2 domain with high affinity

Blocking the interaction between phosphotyrosine (pTyr)-containing activated receptors and the Src homology 2 (SH2) domain of the growth factor receptor-bound protein 2 (Grb 2) is considered to be an effective and non-cytotoxic strategy to develop new anti-proliferate agents due to its potential to shut down the Ras activation pathway. In this study, a series of phosphotyrosine containing cyclic pentapeptides were designed and synthesized based upon the phage library derived cyclopeptide, G1TE. A comprehensive SAR study was also carried out to develop potent Grb2-SH2 domain antagonists based upon this novel template. With both the peptidomimetic optimization of the amino acid side-chains and the constraint of the backbone conformation guided by molecular modeling, we developed several potent antagonists with low micromolar range binding affinity, such as cyclic peptide 15 with an K(d)=0.359microM, which is providing a novel template for the development of Grb2-SH2 domain antagonists as potential therapeutics for certain cancers.

Diversity evolution and jump of Polo-like kinase 1 inhibitors

Polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1), a member of a family of serine/threonine kinases, is an attractive target for the development of anticancer drugs because it is involved in the regulation of cell-cycle progression and cytokinesis. This kinase provides two pockets for developing Plk1 inhibitors: the N-terminal catalytic domain (NCD) and the polo-box domain (PBD). For both of the two pockets, some natural products were identified as Plk1 inhibitors and some synthetic Plk1 inhibitors were developed by mimicking ATP and phosphopeptides, natural products binding to NCD and PBD respectively. This article not only reviews the progression of Plk1 inhibitors binding to these two pockets, but also discusses diversity evolution and jump in the process of drug development using Plk1 inhibitors as examples and how they impact on drug design and pharmacophore modeling.

Synthesis and conformational analysis of locked carbocyclic analogues of 1,3-diazepinone riboside, a high-affinity cytidine deaminase inhibitor.

Cytidine deaminase (CDA) catalyzes the deamination of cytidine via a hydrated transition-state intermediate that results from the nucleophilic attack of zinc-bound water at the active site. Nucleoside analogues where the leaving NH3 group is replaced by a proton and prevent conversion of the transition state to product are very potent inhibitors of the enzyme. However, stable carbocyclic versions of these analogues are less effective as the role of the ribose in facilitating formation of hydrated species is abolished. The discovery that a 1,3-diazepinone riboside (4) operated as a tight-binding inhibitor of CDA independent of hydration provided the opportunity to study novel inhibitors built as conformationally locked, carbocyclic 1,3-diazepinone nucleosides to determine the enzyme’s conformational preference for a specific form of sugar pucker. This work describes the synthesis of two target bicyclo[3.1.0]hexane nucleosides, locked as north (5) and south (6) conformers, as well as a flexible analogue (7) built with a cyclopentane ring. The seven-membered 1,3-diazepinone ring in all the three targets was built from the corresponding benzoyl-protected carbocyclic bis-allyl ureas by ring-closing metathesis. The results demonstrate CDA’s binding preference for a south sugar pucker in agreement with the high-resolution crystal structures of other CDA inhibitors bound at the active site.