Novel dual inhibitors against FP-2 and PfDHFR as potential antimalarial agents: Design, synthesis and biological evaluation

作     者：Wenhua Chen Xue Yao Zhenghui Huang Fei Mao Longfei Guan Yun Tang Hualiang Jiang Jian Li Jin Huang Lubin Jiang Jin Zhu 

作者机构：Shanghai Key Laboratory of New Drug Design School of Pharmacy East China University of Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Molecular Virology & Immunology Unit of Human Parasite Molecular and Cell Biology Institute Pasteur of Shanghai University of Chinese Academy of Science 

出 版 物：《Chinese Chemical Letters》 (中国化学快报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2019年第30卷第1期

页      面：250-254页

核心收录：

学科分类：07[理学] 0703[理学-化学] 

基　　金：Financial support for this research provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21372001 and 21672064) the "Shu Guang" Project supported by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Shanghai Education Development Foundation (No. 14SG28) 

主　　题：Antimalarial drug Plasmodium falciparum FP-2 PfDHFR Dual inhibitor 

摘      要：Resistance to malaria parasites has quickly developed to almost all used antimalarial drugs. Cysteine protease falcipain-2(FP-2) and Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase(PfDHFR) have crucial roles, which are absolutely necessary, in the parasite life cycle. In this study, based on the uniform pharmacophores of reported PfDHFR inhibitors and the first-generation dual inhibitors against FP-2 and PfDHFR, we identified a novel series of dual inhibitors through fragments assembly. Lead optimization led to the identification of 14, which showed potent inhibition against FP-2 and PfDHFR enzyme(IC_(50)= 6.8 + 1.8 mmol/L and IC_(50)= 8.8 + 0.3 mmol/L) and P. falciparum 3D7 strain(IC50= 2.9mmol/L).Additionally, 14 exhibited more potent inhibition to the proliferation of chloroquine-resistant *** Dd2 strain(IC_(50)= 1.1 mmol/L) than pyrimethamine(IC_(50)10 mmol/L), and 14 displayed micromolar inhibitory activities against two clinical isolated strains Fab9(IC_(50)= 2.6 mmol/L) and GB4(IC_(50)= 1.0 mmol/L). Collectively, these data demonstrated that 14 might be a good lead compound for the treatment of malaria.