Open Access2,4,5-Trisubstituted Pyrimidines as Potent HIV-1 NNRTIs: Rational Design, Synthesis, Activity Evaluation, and Crystallographic Studies
Author(s) -
Dongwei Kang,
Francesc Xavier Ruiz,
Yun Sun,
Du Feng,
Lanlan Jing,
Zhao Wang,
Tao Zhang,
Shenghua Gao,
Lin Sun,
Erik De Clercq,
Christophe Pannecouque,
Eddy Arnold,
Peng Zhan,
Xinyong Liu
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of medicinal chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.01
H-Index - 261
eISSN - 1520-4804
pISSN - 0022-2623
DOI - 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.1c00268
Subject(s) - chemistry , etravirine , rational design , lead compound , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , stereochemistry , structure–activity relationship , drug resistance , drug , pharmacology , computational biology , biochemistry , in vitro , virology , biology , genetics , reverse transcriptase , gene , rna
There is an urgent unmet medical need for novel human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) inhibitors that are effective against a variety of NNRTI-resistance mutations. We report our research efforts aimed at discovering a novel chemotype of anti-HIV-1 agents with improved potency against a variety of NNRTI-resistance mutations in this paper. Structural modifications of the lead K-5a2 led to the identification of a potent inhibitor 16c . 16c yielded highly potent anti-HIV-1 activities and improved resistance profiles compared with the approved drug etravirine. The co-crystal structure revealed the key role of the water networks surrounding the NNIBP for binding and for resilience against resistance mutations, while suggesting further extension of 16c toward the NNRTI-adjacent site as a lead development strategy. Furthermore, 16c demonstrated favorable pharmacokinetic and safety properties, suggesting the potential of 16c as a promising anti-HIV-1 drug candidate.