Design of β-Secretase Inhibitors by Introduction of a Mandelyl Moiety in DAPT Analogues

Abstract

We report the synthesis of two series of compounds with 3,5-difluoromandelyl-alanyl or 3,5-difluorophenylacetyl-alanyl backbones coupled to various heterocyclic or peptidic moieties. These two series of compounds were evaluated for their inhibitory properties on β-secretase (BACE-1) enzymatic assay, a target enzyme for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology. We found that both diastereomers obtained from the racemic mixture 7 of the coumarin derivative bearing a mandelyl moiety were the most potent BACE-1 inhibitors studied in this work (IC50 = 1 × 10−6 M). Analysis of the obtained results led to the hypothesis that introduction of a difluoromandelyl residue in place of a difluorophenylacetyl moiety may induce β-secretase inhibitory activity.