Historically the early stages of drug discovery have been based on finding the highest affinity compounds that bind to the target of interest, with little consideration for the forces driving the binding event. The association constant (K a ) can be defined by the equation DG = ÀRTln K a , with DG = DHÀTDS. To fully describe K a it would therefore be beneficial to characterize both of the thermodynamic terms (DH and DS) that drive this affinity for binding. The importance of separating affinity into its thermodynamic components is emphasized by the ubiquitous "enthalpy/entropy compensation effect", where large changes in DH and DS tend to be of similar but opposite signs and there is no net change in affinity, despite potentially very different binding mode.[1] It has been proposed by Freire, [2] and Ward & Holdgate [3] that it is advantageous, in terms of both potency and selectivity, to start from an enthalpically-driven lead. It can also be argued that choosing compounds with different binding modes increases the variety of chemical substrate for optimization, therefore reducing the risk of all the compounds encountering the same side effects. These points emphasize the need to measure thermodynamic signatures of lead compounds as early in the drug discovery process as possible.The only method that directly measures the thermodynamics of a binding event in solution is isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC).[4] Even though ITC can give a full thermodynamic signature (DG obs , DH obs , DS obs and K B, obs ) from a single experiment, the full utilization of the technique for lead optimization has been hampered by technical limitations requiring substantial quantities of reagents. In addition, data have frequently been collected from optimized, but varied, experimental conditions for a particular system, and without appropriate controls the interpretation of results between studies is difficult. Here, we demonstrate that with recent advances in ITC technology [5] and comparing subtly modified ligands against the same target, under identical conditions, and with X-ray data support, thermodynamic measurements can provide medicinal chemists with another differentiator in their quest to discover the best lead compounds. Moreover, these data are informative to medicinal chemists as they are applicable to situations where a less complete biophysical analysis is possible.We chose human carbonic anhydrase (hCA II) as a favorable system for this investigation as there is already a wealth of both 3D structures and calorimetric data available, which has established this protein as the leading model system. [6][7][8][9][10][11] Additionally, the protein binds benzene sulfonamides (BSAs) with a 1:1 stoichiometry and does not undergo gross conformational changes upon binding, providing an essentially thermodynamically closed system that will therefore not complicate interpretation of the binding thermodynamics. The binding of BSA to hCA II is driven mainly through four H bonds from the sulfonamide, two H bonds to the Zn co-...

Novel hydroxynaphthoquinones are reported with outstanding efficacy against Plasmodium, Eimeria and Theileria species. Biochemical evidence is presented for the selective toxicity of these compounds being due to inhibition of parasite respiratory systems.

The hydroxynaphthoquinones, buparvaquone, 250C80 and 56W82, showed high activity in vitro against Leishmania donovani amastigotes in mouse peritoneal macrophages, with ED50 values of 0.05, 2.95 and 13.82 microM, respectively. Fourteen other hydroxynaphthoquinones were tested, of which only 566C80 and 608C86 showed significant activity against amastigotes. Buparvaquone, 250C80 and 56W82 were also highly-active against cultured promastigotes. In a BALB/c mouse model, treatment with 100 mg/kg/day for five days with buparvaquone, 250C80 and 566C80 (atovaquone) reduced liver amastigote numbers by 60%, 22% and 30.5%, respectively.

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