UMass Chan Medical School Faculty Publications
UMMS Affiliation
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
Publication Date
2021-11-30
Document Type
Article Preprint
Disciplines
Biochemistry | Enzymes and Coenzymes | Medicinal-Pharmaceutical Chemistry | Molecular Biology | Structural Biology
Abstract
Third generation Hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3/4A protease inhibitors (PIs), glecaprevir and voxilaprevir, are highly effective across genotypes and against many resistant variants. Unlike earlier PIs, these compounds have fluorine substitutions on the P2-P4 macrocycle and P1 moieties. Fluorination has long been used in medicinal chemistry as a strategy to improve physicochemical properties and potency. However, the molecular basis by which fluorination improves potency and resistance profile of HCV NS3/4A PIs is not well understood. To systematically analyze the contribution of fluorine substitutions to inhibitor potency and resistance profile, we used a multi-disciplinary approach involving inhibitor design and synthesis, enzyme inhibition assays, co-crystallography, and structural analysis. A panel of inhibitors in matched pairs were designed with and without P4 cap fluorination, tested against WT protease and the D168A resistant variant, and a total of 22 high-resolution co-crystal structures were determined. While fluorination did not significantly improve potency against the WT protease, PIs with fluorinated P4 caps retained much better potency against the D168A protease variant. Detailed analysis of the co-crystal structures revealed that PIs with fluorinated P4 caps can sample alternate binding conformations that enable adapting to structural changes induced by the D168A substitution. Our results elucidate molecular mechanisms of fluorine-specific inhibitor interactions that can be leveraged in avoiding drug resistance.
Keywords
X-ray crystallography, Protease inhibitors, Structure-based drug design, Structural biology, Medicinal chemistry
Rights and Permissions
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
DOI of Published Version
10.1101/2021.11.30.470632
Source
bioRxiv 2021.11.30.470632; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.11.30.470632. Link to preprint on bioRxiv.
Related Resources
Now published in Journal of Molecular Biology doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2022.167503
Journal/Book/Conference Title
bioRxiv
Repository Citation
Zephyr J, Desaboini N, Vo SV, Henes M, Kosovrasti K, Matthew AN, Hedger AK, Timm J, Chan ET, Ali A, Yilmaz NK, Schiffer CA. (2021). Deciphering the Molecular Mechanism of HCV Protease Inhibitor Fluorination as a General Approach to Avoid Drug Resistance [preprint]. UMass Chan Medical School Faculty Publications. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.11.30.470632. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/faculty_pubs/2211
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
Biochemistry Commons, Enzymes and Coenzymes Commons, Medicinal-Pharmaceutical Chemistry Commons, Molecular Biology Commons, Structural Biology Commons
Comments
This article is a preprint. Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review.