Footprint-based identification of viral entry inhibitors targeting HIVgp41.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Holden PM
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3321075 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Footprint-based identification of viral entry inhibitors targeting HIVgp41.
Holden Patrick M PM Kaur Harmeet H Goyal Rashi R Gochin Miriam M Rizzo Robert C RC
Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters 20120216 8
A targeted virtual screen to the N-helix hydrophobic pocket on HIVgp41 was performed using DOCK followed by re-ranking with a new footprint-based scoring function which employed native gp41 C-helix residues as a reference. Of ca. 500,000 small molecules screened, 115 were purchased, and 7 hits were identified with favorable binding (K(i)), cell-cell fusion (IC(50)), and cytotoxicity (CC(50)) profiles. Three of the seven active compounds would not have been discovered without the use of the footp ...[more]
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Project description:A highly-conserved binding pocket on HIVgp41 is an important target for development of anti-viral inhibitors. Holden et al. (Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett.2012, 22, 3011) recently reported 7 experimentally-verified leads identified through a computational screen to the gp41 pocket in conjunction with a new DOCK scoring method (termed FPS scoring) developed in our laboratory. The method employs molecular footprints based on per-residue van der Waals interactions, electrostatic interactions, or the sum. In this work, we critically examine the gp41 screening results, prioritized using different scoring methods, in terms of two main criteria: (1) ligand pose properties which include footprint and energy score decompositions, MW, number of rotatable bonds, ligand efficiency, formal charge, and volume overlap, and (2) ligand pose stability which includes footprint stability (changes in footprint overlap) and rmsd stability (changes in geometry). Relative to standard DOCK scoring, pose property analyses demonstrate how FPS scoring can be used to identify ligands that mimic a known reference (derived here from the native gp41 substrate), while pose stability analyses demonstrate how FPS scoring can be used to enrich for compounds with greater overall stability during molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Compellingly, of the 115 compounds tested experimentally, the 7 active compounds, as a group, more closely mimic the footprints made by the reference and show greater MD stability compared to the inactive group. Extensive studies using 116 protein-ligand complexes as controls reveal that ligands in their crystallographic binding pose also maintain higher FPS scores and smaller rmsds than do accompanying decoys, confirming that native poses are indeed 'stable' under the same conditions and that monitoring FPS variability during compound prioritization is likely to be beneficial. Overall, the results suggest the new scoring method will complement current virtual screening approaches for both the identification (FPS-ranking) and prioritization (FPS-stability) of target-compatible molecules in a quantitative and logical way.
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Project description:The viral protein HIVgp41 is an attractive and validated drug target that proceeds through a sequence of conformational changes crucial for membrane fusion, which facilitates viral entry. Prior work has identified inhibitors that interfere with the formation of a required six-helix bundle, composed of trimeric C-heptad (CHR) and N-heptad (NHR) repeat elements, through blocking association of an outer CHR helix or obstructing formation of the inner NHR trimer itself. In this work, we employed similarity-based scoring to identify and experimentally characterize 113 compounds, related to 2 small-molecule inhibitors recently reported by Allen et al. (Bioorg. Med. Chem Lett.2015, 25 2853-59), proposed to act via the NHR trimer obstruction mechanism. The compounds were first tested in an HIV cell-cell fusion assay with the most promising evaluated in a second, more biologically relevant viral entry assay. Of the candidates, compound #11 emerged as the most promising hit (IC50=37.81µM), as a result of exhibiting activity in both assays with low cytotoxicity, as was similarly seen with the known control peptide inhibitor C34. The compound also showed no inhibition of VSV-G pseudotyped HIV entry compared to a control inhibitor suggesting it was specific for HIVgp41. Molecular dynamics simulations showed the predicted DOCK pose of #11 interacts with HIVgp41 in an energetic fashion (per-residue footprints) similar to the four native NHR residues (IQLT) which candidate inhibitors were intended to mimic.
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