QSAR and Pharmacophore Mapping Studies on Benzothiazinimines to Relate their Structural Features with anti-HIV Activity.

Abstract

The development of severe drug resistance caused by the extensive use of anti-HIV agents has resulted in a greatly extensive reduction in these drugs efficacy. To identify the important pharmacophoric features and correlate 3D chemical structure of benzothiazinimines with their anti-HIV potential using 2D, 3D-QSAR and pharmacophore modeling studies. QSAR and pharmacophore mapping studies have been used to relate structural features. 2D QSAR and 3D QSAR studies were performed using partial least square and k-nearest neighbor methodology, coupled with various feature selection methods, viz. stepwise, genetic algorithm, and simulated annealing, to derive QSAR models which were further validated for statistical significance. The physicochemical descriptor XAHydrophilicArea and SsOHE-index, and alignmentindependent descriptor T_C_Cl_6 showed significant correlation with the anti-HIV activity of benzothiazinimines in 2D QSAR. 3D QSAR results showed the significant effect of electrostatic and steric field descriptors in the anti-HIV potential of benzothiazinimines. The generated pharmacophore hypothesis demonstrated the importance of aromaticity and hydrogen bond acceptors. The significant models obtained in this study suggested that these techniques could be used as a guidance for designing new benzothiazinimines with enhanced anti-HIV potential.