Methyl (11aS)-1,2,3,5,11,11a-hexahydro-3,3-dimethyl-1-oxo-6H-imidazo-[3',4':1,2]pyridin[3,4-b]indol-2-substituted acetates: synthesis and three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship investigation as a class of novel vasodilators

Pharmacophore based virtual screening, molecular docking and biological evaluation to identify novel PDE5 inhibitors with vasodilatory activity

Prompted by the role of PDE5 and its closely associated cAMP and cGMP in hypertension, we have attempted to discover novel PDE5 inhibitors through ligand based virtual screening. Rigorously validated model comprising of one HBA, one HY and one RA was used as a query to search the NCI database leading to retrieval of many compounds which were screened on the basis of estimated activity, fit value and Lipinski's violation. Selected compounds were subjected to docking studies which resulted into visualization of potential interaction capabilities of NCI compounds in line to pharmacophoric features. Finally three compounds were subjected to in vitro evaluation using the isolated rat aortic model. The results showed that all three compounds are potent and novel PDE5 inhibitors with vasodilatory activity range from 10(-2) to 10(-5) M.

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.