ASP4000, a slow-binding dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor, has antihyperglycemic activity of long duration in Zucker fatty rats

Influence of the cellular environment on ligand binding kinetics at membrane-bound targets

While historically 'in vitro' binding data were obtained by analyzing equilibrium experiments, kinetic data are increasingly appreciated to provide information on the time a particular compound remains bound to its target. This information is of biological importance to understand the molecular mechanism of a drug not only to evaluate the time a particular receptor/enzyme is blocked in the case of antagonists/inhibitors but also to investigate its contribution to the efficacy to mediate signaling in the case of agonists. There is accumulating evidence that many drugs binding to either membrane-bound receptors or enzymes are found to display long duration of action which can be ascribed to slow dissociation from their target proteins. In the present review three such examples are discussed which encompass ligands that bind to membrane-bound proteins and from which it appears that the tight binding kinetics is influenced by the cellular/membrane environment of the target protein.

Drug-target residence time: critical information for lead optimization

Failure due to poor in vivo efficacy is a primary contributor to attrition during the development of new chemotherapeutics. Lead optimization programs that in their quest for efficacy focus solely on improving the affinity of drug-target binding are flawed, since this approach ignores the fluctuations in drug concentration that occur in vivo. Instead the lifetime of the drug-target complex must also be considered, since drugs only act when they are bound to their targets. Consequently, to improve the correlation between the in vitro and in vivo activity of drugs, measurements of drug-target residence time must be incorporated into the drug discovery process.