A combinatorial approach to the identification of dipeptide aldehyde inhibitors of beta-amyloid production

In an effort to rapidly identify potent inhibitors of Abeta production and to probe the amino acid sequence specificity of the protease(s) responsible for the production of this peptide, a large number of dipeptide aldehydes were combinatorially synthesized and manually evaluated for their inhibitory properties. The starting point for this study was the dipeptide aldehyde carbobenzoxyl-valinyl-phenylalanal previously shown to inhibit the production of Abeta in CHO cells stably transfected with the cDNA encoding betaAPP695. Pools of related dipeptide aldehydes were combinatorially synthesized, and the most active pool was deconvoluted, resulting in the identification of the most active inhibitor of this pool. Systematic optimization of this inhibitor resulted in a series of dipeptide aldehydes with enhanced potencies relative to carbobenzoxyl-valinyl-phenylalanal. The most active dipeptide aldehydes were those that possessed hydrophobic amino acids at both the P1 and P2 positions. The most potent compound identified in this study was 3, 5-dimethoxycinnamamide-isoleucinyl-leucinal with an IC(50) of 9.6 microM, approximately 10-fold more active than carbobenzoxyl-valinyl-phenylalanal. In immunoprecipitation experiments using antibodies directed toward either Abeta1-40 or Abeta1-42, 3,5-dimethoxycinnamamide-isoleucinyl-leucinal, like carbobenzoxyl-valinyl-phenylalanal, preferentially inhibited the shorter 1-40 form of Abeta, whereas the longer 1-42 form was not as strongly inhibited. These results suggest that dipeptide aldehydes related to carbobenzoxyl-valinyl-phenylalanal inhibit Abeta through similar mechanisms and demonstrate the utility of a combinatorial synthesis approach to rapidly identify potent inhibitors of Abeta production.

Population dynamics studies of wild-type and drug-resistant mutant HIV in mixed infections

We have studied the population dynamics in response to selective drug pressure of mixtures of wild-type and mutant HIV viruses exposed to either an inhibitor of the viral protease or a nonnucleoside allosteric inhibitor of the viral reverse transcriptase. In order to quantitate mutant virus present in a mixed population, we developed a selective plaque assay, which appears to be generally applicable to population dynamics studies where the viruses in question differ in the sensitivity to a given drug by at least 10-fold. In this assay system, the titer of virus in a mixture is measured in the absence and presence of a concentration of a specific inhibitor known to suppress virus replication by 99%. Virus detected in the presence of inhibitor corresponds to mutant virus, whereas detection in the absence of drug results in quantitation of the total virion population. Wild-type virus is then estimated by difference. Utilizing this system we studied the fate of mixtures of wild-type and the protease-resistant mutant variant I84V in the presence and absence of the cyclic urea HIV protease inhibitor, DMP 450. We also examined the dynamics of mixtures of wild-type and the resistant mutant variant, L100I, in the presence and absence of the drug DMP 266. In both systems we demonstrated that in the absence of drug, mutant virus is at a selective disadvantage for growth compared to wild-type, whereas in the presence of a specific inhibitor, mutant virus exhibits the selective growth advantage over wild-type virus. Better understanding of HIV population dynamics may allow the development of superior inhibitors and the careful application of combination therapy in the clinical setting.