Current research leads to the assumption that drugs affecting more than one target could result in a more efficient treatment of diseases and fewer safety concerns. Administration of drugs inhibiting only one branch of the arachidonic acid cascade is usually accompanied by side effects. We therefore designed and synthesized a library of hybrid molecules incorporating an imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine and an urea moiety as novel soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH)/5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) dual inhibitors. Evaluation of the compounds was accomplished by in vitro testing using recombinant enzyme assays.
Design of multitarget drugs and polypharmacological compounds has become popular during the past decade. However, the main approach to design such compounds is to link two selective ligands via a flexible linker. Although such chimeric ligands often have reasonable potency in vitro, the in vivo efficacy is low due to high molecular weight, low ligand efficiency, and poor pharmacokinetic profile. We developed an unprecedented in silico approach for fragment-based design of multitarget ligands. It relies on superposition of the chemical spaces related to the affinity on single targets represented by selforganizing maps. We used this approach for screening of molecular fragments, which bind to the enzymes 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) and soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH). Using STD-NMR and activity-based assays, we were able to identify fragments binding to both targets. Furthermore, we were able to expand one of the fragments to a potent dual inhibitor bearing a reasonable molecular weight (MW = 446) and high affinity to both targets (IC 50 of 0.03 μM toward 5-LO and 0.17 μM toward sEH).
A novel class of potent direct 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) inhibitors bearing a thiazolinone-scaffold identified by virtual screening is presented. A range of substitutions and the importance of the 2-phenyl moiety were evaluated. This series is characterized by high potency in intact polymorphonuclear leukocytes and a cell-free system, exemplified by (Z)-2-(4-chlorophenyl)-5-(4-methoxybenzylidene)-5H-thiazol-4-one (18, IC(50) = 0.28 and 0.09 μM). These disubstituted thiazolinones may possess potential for intervention with inflammatory and allergic diseases and certain cancer types.
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