The expression of beta-lactamases is the most common form of bacterial resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics. To combat these enzymes, agents that inhibit (e.g. clavulanic acid) or evade (e.g. aztreonam) beta-lactamases have been developed. Both the beta-lactamase inhibitors and the beta-lactamase-resistant antibiotics are themselves beta-lactams, and bacteria have responded to these compounds by expressing variant enzymes resistant to inhibition (e.g. IRT-3) or that inactivate the beta-lactamase-resistant antibiotic (e.g. TEM-10). Moreover, these compounds have increased the frequency of bacteria with intrinsically resistant beta-lactamases (e.g. AmpC). In an effort to identify non-beta-lactam-based beta-lactamase inhibitors, we used the crystallographic structure of the m-aminophenylboronic acid-Escherichia coli AmpC beta-lactamase complex to suggest modifications that might enhance the affinity of boronic acid-based inhibitors for class C beta-lactamases. Several types of compounds were modeled into the AmpC binding site, and a total of 37 boronic acids were ultimately tested for beta-lactamase inhibition. The most potent of these compounds, benzo[b]thiophene-2-boronic acid (36), has an affinity for E. coli AmpC of 27 nM. The wide range of functionality represented by these compounds allows for the steric and chemical "mapping" of the AmpC active site in the region of the catalytic Ser64 residue, which may be useful in subsequent inhibitor discovery efforts. Also, the new boronic acid-based inhibitors were found to potentiate the activity of beta-lactam antibiotics, such as amoxicillin and ceftazidime, against bacteria expressing class C beta-lactamases. This suggests that boronic acid-based compounds may serve as leads for the development of therapeutic agents for the treatment of beta-lactam-resistant infections.

The structures of AmpC beta-lactamase from Escherichia coli, alone and in complex with a transition-state analogue, have been determined by X-ray crystallography. The native enzyme was determined to 2.0 A resolution, and the structure with the transition-state analogue m-aminophenylboronic acid was determined to 2.3 A resolution. The structure of AmpC from E. coli resembles those previously determined for the class C enzymes from Enterobacter cloacae and Citrobacter freundii. The transition-state analogue, m-aminophenylboronic acid, makes several interactions with AmpC that were unexpected. Perhaps most surprisingly, the putative "oxyanion" of the boronic acid forms what appears to be a hydrogen bond with the backbone carbonyl oxygen of Ala318, suggesting that this atom is protonated. Although this interaction has not previously been discussed, a carbonyl oxygen contact with the putative oxyanion or ligand carbonyl oxygen appears in most complexes involving a beta-lactam recognizing enzyme. These observations may suggest that the high-energy intermediate for amide hydrolysis by beta-lactamases and related enzymes involves a hydroxyl and not an oxyanion, although the oxyanion form certainly cannot be discounted. The involvement of the main-chain carbonyl in ligand and transition-state recognition is a distinguishing feature between serine beta-lactamases and serine proteases, to which they are often compared. AmpC may use the interaction between the carbonyl of Ala318 and the carbonyl of the acylated enzyme to destabilize the ground-state intermediate, this destabilization energy might be relieved in the transition state by a hydroxyl hydrogen bond. The structure of the m-aminophenylboronic acid adduct also suggests several ways to improve the affinity of this class of inhibitor and points to the existence of several unusual binding-site-like features in the region of the AmpC catalytic site.

Beta-lactamases are the major resistance mechanism to beta-lactam antibiotics and pose a growing threat to public health. Recently, bacteria have become resistant to beta-lactamase inhibitors, making this problem pressing. In an effort to overcome this resistance, non-beta-lactam inhibitors of beta-lactamases were investigated for complementarity to the structure of AmpC beta-lactamase from Escherichia coli. This led to the discovery of an inhibitor, benzo(b)thiophene-2-boronic acid (BZBTH2B), which inhibited AmpC with a Ki of 27 nM. This inhibitor is chemically dissimilar to beta-lactams, raising the question of what specific interactions are responsible for its activity. To answer this question, the X-ray crystallographic structure of BZBTH2B in complex with AmpC was determined to 2.25 A resolution. The structure reveals several unexpected interactions. The inhibitor appears to complement the conserved, R1-amide binding region of AmpC, despite lacking an amide group. Interactions between one of the boronic acid oxygen atoms, Tyr150, and an ordered water molecule suggest a mechanism for acid/base catalysis and a direction for hydrolytic attack in the enzyme catalyzed reaction. To investigate how a non-beta-lactam inhibitor would perform against resistant bacteria, BZBTH2B was tested in antimicrobial assays. BZBTH2B significantly potentiated the activity of a third-generation cephalosporin against AmpC-producing resistant bacteria. This inhibitor was unaffected by two common resistance mechanisms that often arise against beta-lactams in conjunction with beta-lactamases. Porin channel mutations did not decrease the efficacy of BZBTH2B against cells expressing AmpC. Also, this inhibitor did not induce expression of AmpC, a problem with many beta-lactams. The structure of the BZBTH2B/AmpC complex provides a starting point for the structure-based elaboration of this class of non-beta-lactam inhibitors.

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The recent success of the first FDA-approved small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor Gleevec (STI-571, imatinib mesylate) in the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) has focused attention on the potential therapeutic usefulness of inhibitors of other kinase targets. This review shall highlight recent applications of computational chemistry methods, comprising both ligand-based and structure-based approaches, in the discovery and design of kinase inhibitors. In particular, we will focus on ATP-competitive inhibitors of selected kinase targets of therapeutic importance.

A family of serine proteases, the granzymes, found in the dense cytoplasmic granules of lymphocytes/granulocytes have become targets of interest for rational drug design because of their role in cell-mediated cytotoxicity. Granzymes represent potential late-stage, specific targets for immunomodulation with the promise of fewer side-effects than agents acting at earlier stages of the immune response, such as cyclosporine A (Neoral®, Sandimmune®) and tacrolimus/FK-506 (Prograf®). Recent reports suggesting other possible biological roles for granzymes, including antigen processing and lymphocyte recruitment, and the increasing evidence for the involvement of aspartic acid-specific proteases, such as granzyme B and the interleukin converting enzyme (ICE), in apoptosis or programmed cell death pathways have increased the interest in this growing family of enzymes. This review summarizes current progress in granzyme research and outlines some of the prospects for future work in this area.

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