Structure-Activity Relationships of Benzamides and Isoindolines Designed as SARS-CoV Protease Inhibitors Effective against SARS-CoV-2 |
| |
| Authors: | Dr Armin Welker Dr Christian Kersten Dr Christin Müller Dr Ramakanth Madhugiri Collin Zimmer Patrick Müller Robert Zimmermann Stefan Hammerschmidt Hannah Maus Prof John Ziebuhr Prof Christoph Sotriffer Prof Tanja Schirmeister |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. Institute for Pharmacy and Food Chemistry, Justus Maximilians University Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany;2. Institute for Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Staudingerweg 5, 55128 Mainz, Germany;3. Institute of Medical Virology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Schubertstrasse 81, 35392 Giessen, Germany |
| |
| Abstract: | Inhibition of coronavirus (CoV)-encoded papain-like cysteine proteases (PLpro) represents an attractive strategy to treat infections by these important human pathogens. Herein we report on structure-activity relationships (SAR) of the noncovalent active-site directed inhibitor (R)-5-amino-2-methyl-N-(1-(naphthalen-1-yl)ethyl) benzamide ( 2 b ), which is known to bind into the S3 and S4 pockets of the SARS-CoV PLpro. Moreover, we report the discovery of isoindolines as a new class of potent PLpro inhibitors. The studies also provide a deeper understanding of the binding modes of this inhibitor class. Importantly, the inhibitors were also confirmed to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in cell culture suggesting that, due to the high structural similarities of the target proteases, inhibitors identified against SARS-CoV PLpro are valuable starting points for the development of new pan-coronaviral inhibitors. |
| |
| Keywords: | Antiviral agents Computational chemistry Drug design Protease inhibitors Structure-activity relationships |
|
|
