Author
Keywords
Abstract

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.

Year of Publication
2012
Journal
ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
Volume
3
Issue
10
Number of Pages
834-838
Date Published
Oct 11 2012
Type of Article
Research Article
ISSN Number
1948-5875
DOI
10.1021/ml3001984
Alternate Journal
ACS Med. Chem. Lett.
PMCID
PMC4025670
PMID
24900387
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