Behnam MAM, Nitsche C, Vechi SM, Klein CD. C-terminal residue optimization and fragment merging: discovery of a potent Peptide-hybrid inhibitor of dengue protease.
ACS Med Chem Lett 2014;
5:1037-42. [PMID:
25221663 DOI:
10.1021/ml500245v]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2014] [Accepted: 07/18/2014] [Indexed: 01/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Dengue virus protease is a promising target for the development of antiviral drugs. We describe here a two-step rational optimization that led to the discovery of the potent inhibitor 35 with nanomolar binding affinity at dengue protease serotype 2 (IC50 = 0.6 μM, K i = 0.4 μM). First, a large number of natural and non-natural amino acids were screened at the C-terminal position of the previously reported, canonical peptide sequence (Cap-Arg-Lys-Nle-NH2). Compared to the reference compound 1 (Bz-Arg-Lys-Nle-NH2, IC50 = 13.3 μM), a 4-fold higher inhibitory potential was observed with the incorporation of a C-terminal phenylglycine (compound 9, IC50 = 3.3 μM). Second, we applied fragment merging of 9 with the previously reported thiazolidinedione peptide hybrid 33 (IC50 = 2.5 μM). This approach led to the fusion of two inhibitor-fragments with micromolar affinity into a 20-fold more potent, competitive inhibitor of dengue protease.
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