Zongru Guo

Synthesis and biological evaluation of substituted 2-sulfonyl-phenyl-3-phenyl-indoles: a new series of selective COX-2 inhibitors

A new series of substituted 2-sulfonyphenyl-3-phenyl-indole derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their ability to inhibit COX-2 and COX-1enzymes. Most of the compounds synthesized were found to be highly potent and selective inhibitors of COX-2. This work led to the discovery of 2-aminosulfonylphenyl-3-phenyl-indole 5a which possesses higher activity and selectivity for COX-2 than Celecoxib both in vitro and in vivo.

Study on molecular mechanism and 3D-QSAR of influenza neuraminidase inhibitors

Neuraminidase (NA) is a critical enzyme of the influenza virus and many inhibitors targeting to this enzyme are quite efficient and encouraging as anti-influenza agents. In this paper the binding model of five series of inhibitors to NA was examined using molecular simulation method. The resulted conformation and orientation of the compounds were directly put into CoMSIA study. The most significant amino acid residues at binding sites and the requirement for features of substituents were applied to direct design of new inhibitors. The robust QSAR model and its three-dimensional contour map provided guidelines to building novel compounds with new scaffold and for structural optimization of current molecules.

Synthesis and anti-inflammatory activity of the major metabolites of imrecoxib.

We have developed a novel and moderately selective COX-2 inhibitor, imrecoxib, as a new anti-inflammatory drug. We describe herein the preparation of the major metabolites M2 and M4 of imrecoxib, as well as the in vitro and in vivo activities of the two compounds. The results showed that both M2 and M4 are potential COXs inhibitors with a moderate COX-1/COX-2 selectivity, and their anti-inflammatory activity in vivo was equal to or slightly higher than the clinical celecoxib.

The synthesis of puerarin derivatives and their protective effect on the myocardial ischemia and reperfusion injury.

Puerarin is a naturally occurring isoflavone and is frequently used for the treatment of cardiovascular symptoms in China. By the structural modification of the puerarin molecule at different positions, seven new puerarin derivatives were obtained, and their cardioprotective activities (in vitro and in vivo) were respectively evaluated. The finding that the activities of 3 and 8 markedly exceeded puerarin suggested that the acylated modification of phenolic hydroxyl at C-7 in the puerarin molecule may improve the cardioprotective activity, which will be an important reference for further structural optimization.

Synthesis and anti-diabetic activity of(RS)-2-ethoxy-3-{4-[2-(4-trifluoro-methanesulfonyloxy-phenyl)-ethoxy]-phenyl}-propionic acid

AbstractAim:To synthesize and study the anti-diabetic activity of (RS)-2-ethoxy-3-{4-[2-(4-trifluoromethanesulfonyloxy-phenyl)-ethoxy]-phenyl}-propionic acid (compound I).Methods:Compound I was prepared in 6 steps, using 4-(2-hydroxy-ethyl)-phenol as the starting material. The in vitro selectivity and potency of target compound I, rosiglitazone and WY-14643 on human PPARα and PPARγ were determined in reporter gene assays. In vivo, rosiglitazone and compound I were administered orally to KKAy mice for 14 d. Insulin tolerance tests and oral glucose tolerance tests were performed on the 10th and 14th day of treatment, respectively. At the end of the treatment, sera were collected for biochemical analysis.Results:In vitro, compound I significantly activated both PPARα and PPARγ. In vivo, compound I corrected the impaired insulin and glucose tolerance of KKAy mice, and produced a significant reduction in plasma triglyceride levels after 14 d of treatment. The effect produced was significant compared with the control group.Conclusion:Both in vitro and in vivo anti-diabetic activity studies for compound I were conducted and the data suggest that this compound is a potentially effective anti-diabetic agent.

Generation and validation of the first predictive pharmacophore model for cyclin-dependent kinase 9 inhibitors

A three-dimensional (3D) pharmacophore modelling approach was applied to a diverse data set of known cyclin-dependent kinase 9 (CDK9) inhibitors. Diversity sampling and principal components analysis (PCA) were employed to ensure the rational selection of representative training sets. Twelve statistically robust pharmacophore models were generated using the HypoGen algorithm. The resulting models showed high homology and indicated great convergence in ascertaining pharmacophoric features essential for CDK9 inhibitory activity. One of the best models (Hypo 6) was assessed further by external predictive capability, randomization test, as well as its performance in virtual screening. The capability of the resulting models to reliably predict the inhibitory activity of external data sets and discriminate active structures from general databases would assist the identification and optimization of novel CDK9 inhibitors.

An entropy-based multi-population genetic algorithm and its application

An improved genetic algorithm based on information entropy is presented in this paper. A new iteration scheme in conjunction with multi-population genetic strategy, entropy-based searching technique with narrowing down space and the quasi-exact penalty function is developed to solve nonlinear programming problems with equality and inequality constraints. A specific strategy of reserving the most fitness member with evolutionary historic information is effectively used to approximate the solution of the nonlinear programming problems to the global optimization. Numerical examples and an application in molecular docking demonstrate its accuracy and efficiency.