Discovery of novel uridine-based chitin synthase inhibitors: Design, synthesis and structure-activity relationships.

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel spiro-quinazolinone derivatives as chitin synthase inhibitors and antifungal agents

Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel phosphoramidate derivatives of coumarin as chitin synthase inhibitors and antifungal agents

Discovery of two new inhibitors of Botrytis cinerea chitin synthase by a chemical library screening

In the course of search for potent chitin synthase inhibitors from plant extracts, the chitin synthase 2 inhibitors, O-methyl pisiferic acid and 8,20-dihydroxy-9(11),13-abietadien-12-one which have diterpene skeleton, were isolated from the leaves of Chamaecyparis pisifera. These compounds inhibited chitin synthase 2 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with the IC50 values of 5.8 and 226.4 microM, respectively. Especially, O-methyl pisiferic acid showed 15.3-fold stronger inhibitory activity than polyoxin D (IC50=88.6 microM), a well-known chitin synthase inhibitor. These compounds exhibited weaker inhibitory activities against chitin synthase 1 than chitin synthase 2, whereas it showed no inhibitory activity for chitin synthase 3. The compound exhibited mixed competitive inhibition with respect to UDP-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine as substrate (Ki=5 microM). These results indicated that O-methyl pisiferic acid is a specific inhibitor of chitin synthase 2. The compound also inhibited chitin synthase 1 of Candida albicans, which represents analogues to chitin synthase 2 of S. cerevisiae, with an IC50 of 75.6 microM, which represents 1.8-fold weaker activity than that of polyoxin D. Although O-methyl pisiferic acid has been reported for antibacterial and insecticidal activities, the present study is the first report on its inhibitory activity against chitin synthase 2.

In the course of search for potent chitin synthase inhibitors from natural resources, a novel chitin synthases inhibitor, 2'-benzoyloxycinnamaldehyde (2'-BCA) (I), was isolated from the aerial parts of Pleuropterus ciliinervis NAKAI. 2'-BCA inhibited chitin synthase 1 and 2 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with the IC50s of 54.9 and 70.8 microg/ml, respectively, whereas it exhibited no inhibitory activity for chitin synthase 3 up to 280 microg/ml. Its derivatives, 2'-chloro- (V) and 2(-bromo-cinnamaldehyde (VI), each showed 1.9 and 2.7-fold stronger inhibitory activities than 2'-BCA, with the IC50s of 37.2 and 26.6 microg/ml, respectively. Especially, the IC50 of compound VI against chitin synthase 2 represented 1.7-fold more potent inhibitory activity than polyoxin D, a well-known chitin synthase inhibitor. Furthermore, compounds V and VI showed potent antifungal activities against various fungi including human pathogenic fungi, with a particularly strong inhibitory activity against Cryptococcus neoformans (MIC = 16 microg/ml). Although the chemical synthesis of this compound has been reported, the present study is the first report to describe the isolation of 2'-BCA from natural resources and chitin synthases inhibitory activities of its derivatives. These results suggested that 2'-BCA and its derivatives can potentially serve as useful lead compounds for development of antifungal agents.

A series of novel 3-substituted amino-4-hydroxycoumarin derivatives have been designed and synthesized as chitin synthase (CHS) inhibitors. All the synthesized compounds have been screened for their CHS inhibition activity and antimicrobial activity in vitro. The enzymatic assay indicated that most of the compounds have good inhibitory activity against CHS, in which compound 6o with IC50 of 0.10 mmol/L had stronger activity than that of polyoxins B, which acts as control drug with IC50 of 0.18 mmol/L. As far as the antifungal activity is concerned, most of the compounds possessed moderate to excellent activity against some representative pathogenic fungi. Especially, compound 6b was found to be the most potent agent against Cryptococcus neoformans with minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 4 μg/mL. Moreover, the results of antibacterial screening showed that these compounds have negligible actions to some tested bacteria. Therefore, these compounds would be promising to develop selective antifungal agents.

The introduction of active groups of natural products into the framework of pesticide molecules is an effective approach for discovering active lead compounds, and thus has been widely used in the development of new agrochemicals. In this work, a novel series of 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline derivatives containing a pyrimidine ether scaffold were designed and synthesized by the active substructure splicing method. The new compounds showed good antifungal activities against several fungi. Especially, compound 4fh displayed excellent in vitro activity against Valsa mali and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum with EC50 values of 0.71 and 2.47 μg/mL, respectively. 4fh had slightly stronger inhibitory activity (68.08% at 50 μM) against chitin synthase (CHS) than that of polyoxin D (63.84% at 50 μM) and exhibited obvious curative and protective effects on S. sclerotiorum in vivo. Thus, 4fh can be considered as a new candidate fungicide as a chitin synthase inhibitor. An accurate and reliable three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D-QSAR) model presented a useful direction for the further excogitation of more highly active fungicides. Molecular docking revealed that the conventional hydrogen bond mainly affected the binding affinity of 4fh with chitin synthase. The present results will provide a guidance to discover potential CHS-based fungicides for plant disease control in agriculture.

Increased risk of fungal diseases in immunocompromised patients, emerging fungal pathogens, limited repertoire of antifungal drugs and resistance development against the drugs demands for development of new and effective antifungal agents. With greater knowledge of fungal metabolism efforts are being made to inhibit specific enzymes involved in different biochemical pathways for the development of antifungal drugs. Chitin synthase is one such promising target as it is absent in plants and mammals. Nikkomycin Z, a chitin synthase inhibitor is under clinical development. Chitin synthesis in fungi, chitin synthase as a target for antifungal agent development, different chitin synthase inhibitors isolated from natural sources, randomly synthesized and modified from nikkomycin and polyoxin are discussed in this review. Keywords: Antifungal agents, Chitin synthase, Chitin synthase inhibitors, Nikkomycin, Peptidyl nucleoside antibiotics, Polyoxin

Fungal diseases remain important causes of crop failure and economic losses. As the resistance toward current selective fungicides becomes increasingly problematic, it is necessary to develop efficient fungicides with novel chemotypes. A series of novel quinazolin-6-ylcarboxylates which combined the structures of pyridine or heterocyclic motif and the N-(3-chloro-4-fluorophenyl)quinazolin-4-amine moiety, a binding group of ATP-binding site of gefitinib, were evaluated for their fungicidal activity on different phytopathogenic fungi. Most of these compounds showed excellent fungicidal activities against Botrytis cinerea and Exserohilum rostratum, especially compound F17 displayed the highest activity with EC50 values as 3.79 μg/mL against B. cinerea and 2.90 μg/mL against E. rostratum, which was similar to or even better than those of the commercial fungicides, such as pyraclostrobin (EC50 , 3.68, 17.38 μg/mL) and hymexazol (EC50 , 4.56, 2.13 μg/mL). Moreover, compound F17 significantly arrested the lesion expansion of B. cinerea infection on tomato detached leaves and strongly suppressed grey mold disease on tomato seedlings in greenhouse. The abilities of compound F17 to induce cell apoptosis of the non-germinated spores, to limit oxalic acid production, to reduce malate dehydrogenase (MDH) expression, and to block the active pocket of MDH protein were demonstrated in B. cinerea. The novel quinazolin-6-ylcarboxylates containing ATP-binding site-directed moiety, especially compound F17, could be developed as a potential fungicidal candidate for further study. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Spiro[benzoxazine-piperidin]-one derivatives as chitin synthase inhibitors and antifungal agents: Design, synthesis and biological evaluation

Myricetin and sulfonamide derivatives exhibited a wide variety of biological activity. In order to develop highly bioactive molecules, novel myricetin derivatives containing sulfonamide moiety were synthesized and antibacterial activities were investigated. The results of bioassays indicated that compound A12, having an EC50 value of 4.7μg mL-1 , exhibited the best in vitro antibacterial activities against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (X. oryzae pv. o.); EC50 values for this compound were even better than those of thiodiazole-copper (TC, 71.4μg mL-1 ) and bismerthiazol (BT, 54.7μg mL-1 ). Compound A2, having an EC50 value of 1.1μg mL-1 , exhibited the best in vitro antibacterial activities against Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri (X. axonopodis pv. c); values were notably better than those of TC (60.0μg mL-1 ) and BT (48.9μg mL-1 ). Scanning electron microscopy analysis indicated that compounds A2 and A12 caused the cell membranes of X. axonopodis pv. c and X. oryzae pv. o. to break or deform, respectively. When the concentration of compound A12 was 100 μg mL-1 , the effective curative activity against bacterial leaf blight of rice was 44.2% in vivo and the effective protection activity was 58.2% in vivo, results that were both better than values for TC (18.9 and 21.4%, respectively) and BT (12.5 and 12.5%, respectively). Novel myricetin derivatives containing a sulfonamide moiety were synthesized and bioassay results showed that compounds A2 and A12 exhibited the best antibacterial activities. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.

Potent chitin synthase 2 inhibitors, methyllinderone (1), linderone (2) and kanakugiol (3) were isolated from the stem bark of L. erythrocarpa Makino (Lauraceae). These compounds inhibited chitin synthase 2 with IC(50) values of 23.3, 21.4 and 23.8 microg/mL, respectively. Methyllinderone (1) and linderone (2) exhibited no inhibitory activities for chitin synthases 1 and 3 from S. cerevisiae, and chitin synthase 1 from Candida albicans up to the concentration of 280 microg/mL, while kanakugiol (3) exhibited very weak activity against chitin synthase 1 of C. albicans with an IC(50) of 160 microg/mL. All of the compounds showed moderate to weak antifungal activities against various pathogenic fungi (MIC: 8 - >128 microg/mL) including Cryptococcus neoformans, Aspergillus fumigatus, and Colletotrichum lagenarium. The results indicate that these compounds are specific inhibitors of chitin synthase 2 and can potentially serve as antifungal agents.

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel diazaspirodecanone derivatives containing piperidine-4-carboxamide as chitin synthase inhibitors and antifungal agents

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel 3,4-dihydro-2(1H)-quinolinone derivatives as potential chitin synthase inhibitors and antifungal agents

Characterization of a chitin synthase cDNA and its increased mRNA level associated with decreased chitin synthesis in Anopheles quadrimaculatus exposed to diflubenzuron