Identifying Ortholog Selective Fragment Molecules for Bacterial Glutaredoxins by NMR and Affinity Enhancement by Modification with an Acrylamide Warhead

oleh: Ram B. Khattri, Daniel L. Morris, Stephanie M. Bilinovich, Erendra Manandhar, Kahlilah R. Napper, Jacob W. Sweet, David A. Modarelli, Thomas C. Leeper

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2019-12-01

Deskripsi

Illustrated here is the development of a new class of antibiotic lead molecules targeted at <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> glutaredoxin (PaGRX). This lead was produced to (a) circumvent efflux-mediated resistance mechanisms via covalent inhibition while (b) taking advantage of species selectivity to target a fundamental metabolic pathway. This work involved four components: a novel workflow for generating protein specific fragment hits via independent nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements, NMR-based modeling of the target protein structure, NMR guided docking of hits, and synthetic modification of the fragment hit with a vinyl cysteine trap moiety, i.e., acrylamide warhead, to generate the chimeric lead. Reactivity of the top warhead-fragment lead suggests that the ortholog selectivity observed for a fragment hit can translate into a substantial kinetic advantage in the mature warhead lead, which bodes well for future work to identify potent, species specific drug molecules targeted against proteins heretofore deemed undruggable.