We have discovered a novel chemical class of inhibitors of the EphB4 tyrosine kinase by fragment-based high-throughput docking followed by explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations for assessment of the binding mode. The synthesis of a single derivative (compound 7) of the hit identified in silico has resulted in an improvement of the inhibitory potency in an enzymatic assay from 8.4 μM to 160 nM and a ligand efficiency of 0.39 kcal/mol per non-hydrogen atom. Such remarkable improvement in affinity is due to an additional hydroxyl group involved in two favorable (buried) hydrogen bonds as predicted by molecular dynamics and validated by the crystal structure of the complex with EphA3 solved at 1.7Å resolution.
BT - ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters C1 - 0164 DA - Oct 11 2012 DO - 10.1021/ml3001984 IS - 10 J2 - ACS Med. Chem. Lett. LA - eng M3 - Research Article N2 -We have discovered a novel chemical class of inhibitors of the EphB4 tyrosine kinase by fragment-based high-throughput docking followed by explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations for assessment of the binding mode. The synthesis of a single derivative (compound 7) of the hit identified in silico has resulted in an improvement of the inhibitory potency in an enzymatic assay from 8.4 μM to 160 nM and a ligand efficiency of 0.39 kcal/mol per non-hydrogen atom. Such remarkable improvement in affinity is due to an additional hydroxyl group involved in two favorable (buried) hydrogen bonds as predicted by molecular dynamics and validated by the crystal structure of the complex with EphA3 solved at 1.7Å resolution.
PY - 2012 SP - 834 EP - 838 T2 - ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters TI - Discovery of a novel chemotype of tyrosine kinase inhibitors by fragment-based docking and molecular dynamics VL - 3 SN - 1948-5875 ER -