Shalini Saxena

Structure-Guided Design of Novel Thiazolidine Inhibitors of O-Acetyl Serine Sulfhydrylase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis

The cysteine biosynthetic pathway is absent in humans but essential in microbial pathogens, suggesting that it provides potential targets for the development of novel antibacterial compounds. CysK1 is a pyridoxalphosphate-dependent O-acetyl sulfhydrylase, which catalyzes the formation of l-cysteine from O-acetyl serine and hydrogen sulfide. Here we report nanomolar thiazolidine inhibitors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis CysK1 developed by rational inhibitor design. The thiazolidine compounds were discovered using the crystal structure of a CysK1-peptide inhibitor complex as template. Pharmacophore modeling and subsequent in vitro screening resulted in an initial hit compound 2 (IC50 of 103.8 nM), which was subsequently optimized by a combination of protein crystallography, modeling, and synthetic chemistry. Hit expansion of 2 by chemical synthesis led to improved thiazolidine inhibitors with an IC50 value of 19 nM for the best compound, a 150-fold higher potency than the natural peptide inhibitor (IC50 2.9 μM).

Design and synthesis of novel quinoline–aminopiperidine hybrid analogues as Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA gyraseB inhibitors

Antibiotics with good therapeutic value and novel mechanism of action are becoming increasingly important in todays battle against bacterial resistance. One of the popular targets being DNA gyrase, is currently becoming well-established and clinically validated for the development of novel antibacterials. In the present work, a series of forty eight quinoline-aminopiperidine based urea and thiourea derivatives were synthesized as pharmacophoric hybrids and evaluated for their biological activity. Compound, 1-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-(1-(6-methoxy-2-methylquinolin-4-yl)piperidin-4-yl)thiourea (45) was found to exhibit promising in vitro Mycobacterium smegmatis GyrB IC₅₀ of 0.95 ± 0.12 μM and a well correlated Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) DNA gyrase supercoiling IC₅₀ of 0.62 ± 0.16 μM. Further, compound 45 also exhibited commendable MTB MIC, safe eukaryotic cytotoxic profile with no signs of cardiotoxicity in zebrafish ether-a-go-go-related gene (zERG).

Identification of novel inhibitors against Mycobacterium tuberculosis L-alanine dehydrogenase (MTB-AlaDH) through structure-based virtual screening.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) the etiological agent of tuberculosis (TB) survives in the human host for decades evading the immune system in a latent or persistent state. The Rv2780 (ald) gene that codes for L-alanine dehydrogenase (L-AlaDH) enzyme catalyzes reversible oxidative deamination of L-alanine to pyruvate and is overexpressed under hypoxic and nutrient starvation conditions in MTB. At present, as there is no suitable drug available to treat dormant tuberculosis; it is essential to identify drug candidates that could potentially treat dormant TB. Availability of crystal structure of MTB L-AlaDH bound with co-factor NAD+ facilitated us to employ structure-based virtual screening approach to obtain new hits from a commercial library of Asinex database using energy-optimized pharmacophore modeling. The resulting pharmacophore consisted of three hydrogen bond donor sites (D) and two hydrogen bond acceptor sites (A). The database compounds with a fitness score more than 1.0 were further subjected to Glide high-throughput virtual screening and docking. Thus, we report the identification of best five hits based on structure-based design and their in vitro enzymatic inhibition studies revealed IC₅₀ values in the range of 35-80 μM.

Development of novel tetrahydrothieno[2,3-c]pyridine-3-carboxamide based Mycobacterium tuberculosis pantothenate synthetase inhibitors: Molecular hybridization from known antimycobacterial leads

Twenty six 2,6-disubstituted 4,5,6,7-tetrahydrothieno[2,3-c]pyridine-3-carboxamide derivatives were designed by molecular hybridization approach using and synthesized from piperidin-4-one by five step synthesis. Compounds were evaluated for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) pantothenate synthetase (PS) inhibition study, in vitro activities against MTB, cytotoxicity against RAW 264.7 cell line. Among the compounds, 6-(4-nitrophenylsulfonyl)-2-(5-nitrothiophene-2-carboxamido)-4,5,6,7-tetrahydrothieno[2,3-c]pyridine-3-carboxamide (11) was found to be the most active compound with IC50 of 5.87 ± 0.12 μM against MTB PS, inhibited MTB with MIC of 9.28 μM and it was non-cytotoxic at 50 μM. The binding affinity of the most potent inhibitor 11 was further confirmed biophysically through differential scanning fluorimetry.

Discovery of novel inhibitors targeting the Mycobacterium tuberculosis O-acetylserine sulfhydrylase (CysK1) using virtual high-throughput screening.

Cysteine biosynthesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) is crucial for this pathogen to combat oxidative stress and for long term survival in the host. Hence inhibition of this pathway is attractive for developing novel drugs against tuberculosis. In the present study, the crystal structure of the mycobacterial enzyme O-acetylserine sulfhydrylase CysK1 bound to an oligopeptide inhibitor was used as a framework for virtual screening of the BITS-Pilani in-house database to identify new scaffolds as CysK1 inhibitors. Thirty compounds were synthesized and evaluated in vitro for their ability to inhibit CysK1, activity against M. tuberculosis and cytotoxicity as steps towards the derivation of structure-activity relationships (SAR) and lead optimization. Compound 8-nitro-4-(2-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)-4,4a-dihydro-2H-pyrimido[5,4-e]thiazolo[3,2-a]pyrimidine-2,5(3H)-dione (4n) emerged as the most promising lead with an IC(50) of 17.7 μM for purified CysK1 and MIC of 7.6 μM for M. tuberculosis, with little or no cytotoxicity (>50 μM).

Engineering another class of anti-tubercular lead: Hit to lead optimization of an intriguing class of gyrase ATPase inhibitors.

A structure based medium throughput virtual screening campaign of BITS-Pilani in house chemical library to identify novel binders of Mycobacterium tuberculosis gyrase ATPase domain led to the discovery of a quinoline scaffold. Further medicinal chemistry explorations on the right hand core of the early hit, engendered a potent lead demonstrating superior efficacy both in the enzyme and whole cell screening assay. The binding affinity shown at the enzyme level was further corroborated by biophysical characterization techniques. Early pharmacokinetic evaluation of the optimized analogue was encouraging and provides interesting potential for further optimization.

Design and development of novel Mycobacterium tuberculosis L-alanine dehydrogenase inhibitors.

In the present study, we used crystal structure of MTB L-AlaDH protein complex with N6-methyl adenosine for structure based virtual screening of in house database to identify new small molecule inhibitors for MTB-L-AlaDH. Two molecules identified as better leads and were modified synthetically to obtain thirty novel analogues belonging to 2-iminothiazolidine-4-ones and 4,5,6,7-tetrahydrothieno[2,3-c]pyridine-3-carboxamides. Among the screened compounds four (4n, 4o, 12 and 14) emerged as potent inhibitors displaying IC50 values ranging from 0.58 ± 0.02 to 1.74 ± 0.03 μM against MTB-L-AlaDH and were non-cytotoxic at 50 μM. Some of these synthesized compounds also exhibited good activity against nutrient starved dormant MTB cells. The most potent inhibitors were found to stabilize the protein which was confirmed biophysically through differential scanning fluorimetry.

Development of 2-amino-5-phenylthiophene-3-carboxamide derivatives as novel inhibitors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA GyrB domain.

DNA gyrase is the only type II topoisomerase in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), unlike other bacteria and its absence in human being makes it a clinically validated target for developing anti-tubercular leads against Mtb. In the present study, our effort was to optimize and synthesize a series of compounds by a combination of molecular docking, and synthetic chemistry approach for better activity. A series of twenty eight substituted 2-amino-5-phenylthiophene-3-carboxamide derivatives were designed based on our earlier reported Mtb GyrB inhibitor lead. Hit expansion of the previously identified lead by chemical synthesis led to improved inhibitor with an IC50 value of 0.86±0.81μM against Mtb DNA gyrase supercoiling and Mycobacterium smegmatis GyrB IC50 of 1.35±0.58μM. Further a biophysical investigation using differential scanning fluorimetry experiments re-ascertained the affinity of these molecules towards the GyrB domain.

Structure-guided design of thiazolidine derivatives as Mycobacterium tuberculosis pantothenate synthetase inhibitors.

The pantothenate biosynthetic pathway is essential for the persistent growth and virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and one of the enzymes in the pathway, pantothenate synthetase (PS, EC: 6.3.2.1), encoded by the panC gene, has become an appropriate target for new therapeutics to treat tuberculosis. Herein, we report nanomolar thiazolidine inhibitors of Mtb PS developed by a rational inhibitor design approach. The thiazolidine compounds were discovered by using energy‐based pharmacophore modelling and subsequent in vitro screening, which resulted in compounds with a half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) value of (1.12±0.12) μM. These compounds were subsequently optimised by a combination of modelling and synthetic chemistry. Hit expansion of the lead by chemical synthesis led to an improved inhibitor with an IC50 value of 350 nM and an Mtb minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 1.55 μM. Some of these compounds also showed good activity against dormant Mtb cells.

Discovery of Novel Mycobacterial DNA Gyrase B Inhibitors: In Silico and In Vitro Biological Evaluation

DNA gyrase of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) is a type II topoisomerase that ensures the regulation of DNA topology and has been genetically demonstrated to be a bactericidal drug target. Availability of crystal structure of M. smegmatics GyrB in complex with one of the aminopyrazinamides facilitated us to employ structure‐based virtual screening approach to obtain new hits from a commercial library of Asinex database using energy‐optimized pharmacophore modeling. Further the model was validated using enrichment calculations, and finally three models were employed for high‐throughput virtual screening and docking to identify novel DNA gyrase B inhibitors. This study led to the identification of fifteen potential compounds with IC50 values in the range of 1.5–45.5 µM against M. smegmatics GyrB and 1.16–25 µM in MTB supercoiling assay. Lead 11 emerged as the most potential compound, exhibiting inhibition of MTB DNA gyrase supercoiling with an IC50 of 1.16±0.25 µM, and M. smegmatics GyrB IC50 of 1.5±0.12 µM and hence could be further developed as novel inhibitor for mycobacterial GyrB.