Activity Of HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors Research Articles

The index of ideality of correlation and the variety of molecular rings as a base to improve model of HIV-1 protease inhibitors activity

Computational prediction of HIV-1 protease inhibitor via quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSARs) is a popular study in the field of computational chemistry. The aim of the present study was building up of QSAR models for anti-HIV activity by means of the CORAL software ( http://www.insilico.eu/coral ). Applying of correlation weights for five and six-member molecular rings as components of the target function in the Monte Carlo optimization that is aimed to build up correlation between activity of HIV-1 protease inhibitors expressed as pIC50 = lg[1/(IC50 × 109)] and optimal descriptor improves the predictive potential. Simplified molecular input-line entry system (SMILES) is used as the representation of the molecular structure of HIV-1 protease inhibitors for the QSAR analysis. New criterion of predictive potential so-called index of ideality of correlation (IIC) has been appllied to improve the model for HIV-1 protease inhibitors activity. High correlation coefficients were observed between the experimental and predicted anti-HIV activity. Applying of special ring code as component of the Monte Carlo calculation significantly improves the statistical quality of the model. Furthermore, applying of the IIC as component of the Monte Carlo optimization improves the predictive potential of the CORAL models. The presence of the rings and the quality of these are very important molecular features which are able to improve statistical quality of model for anti-HIV activity. In addition, the ability of IIC to improve predictive potential of a model has been confirmed.

Antimalarial activity of HIV-1 protease inhibitor in chromone series

Increasing parasite resistance to nearly all available antimalarial drugs becomes a serious problem to human health and necessitates the need to continue the search for new effective drugs. Recent studies have shown that clinically utilized HIV-1 protease (HIV-1 PR) inhibitors can inhibit the in vitro and in vivo growth of Plasmodium falciparum. In this study, a series of chromone derivatives possessing HIV-1 PR inhibitory activity has been tested for antimalarial activity against P. falciparum (K1 multi-drug resistant strain). Chromone 15, the potent HIV-1 PR inhibitor (IC50=0.65μM), was found to be the most potent antimalarial compound with IC50=0.95μM while primaquine and tafenoquine showed IC50=2.41 and 1.95μM, respectively. Molecular docking study of chromone compounds against plasmepsin II, an aspartic protease enzyme important in hemoglobin degradation, revealed that chromone 15 exhibited the higher binding affinity (binding energy=−13.24kcal/mol) than the known PM II inhibitors. Thus, HIV-1 PR inhibitor in chromone series has the potential to be a new class of antimalarial agent.

A genetic algorithm optimized fuzzy neural network analysis of the affinity of inhibitors for HIV-1 protease

A fuzzy neural network (FNN) was trained on a dataset of 177 HIV-1 protease ligands with experimentally measured IC 50 values. A set of descriptors was selected to build nonlinear quantitative structure–activity relationships. A genetic algorithm (GA) was implemented to optimize the architecture of the fuzzy neural network used to predict biological activity of HIV-1 protease inhibitors. Evolutionary methods were used to apply feature selection (FS) to this model. Results obtained on an external test set of 21 molecules, with and without feature selection, were compared. Applying feature selection to the GA-FNN resulted in a more accurate prediction of biological activity. Fuzzy IF/THEN rules were extracted from the optimized FNN. In the future the developed models are expected to be useful in the rational design of novel enzyme inhibitors for HIV-1 protease.

Enhancing the accuracy of virtual screening: molecular dynamics with quantum-refined force fields

A methodology aimed at improving the accuracy of current docking-scoring procedures is proposed, and validated through detailed tests of its performance in predicting the activity of HIV-1 protease inhibitors. This methodology is based on molecular dynamics simulations using a force field whose effective charges are refined by means of a novel procedure that relies on quantum-mechanical calculations and preserves the internal consistency of the parameterization scheme.

Synthesis of Poly(ethylene glycol)-Based Saquinavir Prodrug Conjugates and Assessment of Release and Anti-HIV-1 Bioactivity Using a Novel Protease Inhibition Assay

Various poly(ethylene glycol)(PEG)-based prodrug conjugates of the HIV-1 protease inhibitor (PI) saquinavir (SQV) were prepared using several types of chemical groups potentially capable of modifying its pharmacokinetic properties. These prodrug conjugates included SQV-cysteine-PEG3400, SQV-cysteine-PEG3400-biotin, SQV-cysteine(R.I.CK-Tat9) [a cationic retro-inverso-cysteine-lysine-Tat nonapeptide]-PEG3400, and SQV-cysteine(R.I.CK(stearate)-Tat9)-PEG3400. SQV was linked to cysteine to form a releasable SQV-cysteine ester bond in all of the conjugates. The amino group of the cysteine moiety provided an attachment site for a slower-degrading amide bond with N-hydroxysuccinimide-activated forms of PEG- and PEG-biotin. Disulfide bonds were used to attach the cationic peptides, R.I.CK-Tat9 and R.I.CK(stearate)-Tat9 to the cysteine moiety in order to provide cell-specific release. An assay was established and validated for measuring the activity of SQV and other protease inhibitors in biological samples. In this assay, cleavage of an internally quenched fluorescent substrate, Arg-Glu(EDANS)-Ser-Gln-Asn-Tyr-Pro-Ile-Val-Gly-Lys(DABCYL)-Arg by HIV-1 protease was inhibited by SQV in a dose-dependent manner at concentrations of 0.05-0.5 microM. All prodrug conjugates were shown to be inactive in this assay until the ester bond was cleaved and active SQV was released. The prodrug reconversion half-lives in 0.1 N HCl, phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) at pH 7.4 and in spiked plasma at 37 degrees C were 9, 14, and 0.9 h, respectively. The anti-HIV-1 activity (ED(50)) of the PEG-based SQV prodrug conjugates was evaluated in MT-2 cells using an MTT assay. The activity of conjugated SQV was reduced (ED(50) = 900 nM) for the PEG only conjugate, but restored with the addition of biotin (ED(50) = 125 nM), R.I.CK-Tat9 (ED(50) = 15 nM), and R.I.CK(stearate)-Tat9 (ED(50) = 62 nM) as compared to maximum achievable anti-HIV-1 activity (unconjugated SQV, control, ED(50) = 15 nM), suggesting enhanced cellular uptake of conjugates. Cytotoxicity (LD(50)) was assessed for all prodrug conjugates using non-HIV-1 infected cells and was found to be in the micromolar range. The difference between the LD(50) and ED(50) suggests a favorable therapeutic index for the prodrug conjugates. In conclusion, these promising initial results demonstrate that the reconversion of the conjugate prodrugs was complete and that active SQV was released. Since the major delivery advantages of PEG prodrug conjugates can only be observed in vivo, issues of reconversion and elimination half-lives in plasma will have to be further studied in an in vivo model. The current results also demonstrate that the protease inhibition assay is a simple yet effective bioanalytical tool that can be used to assess the release and anti-HIV-1 activity of HIV-1 PIs from their prodrug forms.