• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.1141-1150
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• 2007

Molecular modeling study has been performed to assist in the design of PTP1B inhibitors using FlexX. FlexX dockings with 19 test ligands, whose structures have been determined by X-ray crystallography, were successful in reproducing the experimental conformations within the protein. An increase in biological activity is observed as hydrophobic character of formylchromone derivatives increases. Most ligands bind to the activesite regions of the protein successfully in two different score runs. The Drug score run gave better results than the FlexX score run based on the score, rank, binding modes and bond distance of docked structures. Consensus values from the CScore scoring function are between 3 and 5, suggesting that the scoring scheme is reliable. All formylchromone inhibitors considered in this work show unidirectional binding modes in the active site pocket, which is contrary to the bidirectional X-ray results by Malamas et al. and amino acid residues responsible for such orientation are identified to help further development of the inhibitors.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.921-927
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• 2008

Discovery of $\alpha$-glucosidase inhibitors has been actively pursued with the aim to develop therapeutics for the treatment of diabetes and the other carbohydrate mediated diseases. As a method for the discovery of new novel inhibitors of $\alpha$-glucosidase, we have addressed the performance of the computer-aided drug design protocol involving the homology modeling of $\alpha$-glucosidase and the structure-based virtual screening with the two docking tools: FlexX and the automated and improved AutoDock implementing the effects of ligand solvation in the scoring function. The homology modeling of $\alpha$-glucosidase from baker’s yeast provides a high-quality 3-D structure enabling the structure-based inhibitor design. Of the two docking programs under consideration, AutoDock is found to be more accurate than FlexX in terms of scoring putative ligands to the extent of 5-fold enhancement of hit rate in database screening when 1% of database coverage is used as a cutoff. A detailed binding mode analysis of the known inhibitors shows that they can be stabilized in the active site of $\alpha$- glucosidase through the simultaneous establishment of the multiple hydrogen bond and hydrophobic interactions. The present study demonstrates the usefulness of the automated AutoDock program with the improved scoring function as a docking tool for virtual screening of new $\alpha$-glucosidase inhibitors as well as for binding mode analysis to elucidate the activities of known inhibitors.

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2003.10b
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• pp.180.2-180.2
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• 2003

Cathepsin K, a cysteine protease of the papain superfamily, is predominantly expressed in osteoclasts and has been postulated as a target for the treatment of osteoporosis. Crystallographic and structure-activity studies on a series of azepanone-based diamino and acyclic ketone derivative inhibitors of cathepsin K have led to the design and identification. X-ray structure of the cysteine protease cathepsin K (1NL6) co-crystalized with an inhibitor with 2.8${\AA}$ resolution was used to predict the protein-ligand interactions and to estimate the binding affinity from the docking score by FlexX module. (omitted)

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.552-560
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• 2020

Human carbonic anhydrase (CA) isozyme II has been used as protein target for disorder treatment including glaucoma. Current clinically used sulfonamide-based CA inhibitors can induce side effects, and so alternatives are required. This study aimed to investigate a natural CA inhibitor from Murraya paniculata. The previously developed yeast-based assay was used to screen 14 compounds isolated from M. paniculata and identified by NMR analysis for anti-human CA isozyme II (hCAII) activity. Cytotoxicity of the compounds was also tested using the same yeast-based assay but in a different cultivation condition. Two flavonoid candidate compounds, 5, 6, 7, 8, 3', 4', 5'-heptamethoxyflavone (4) and 3, 5, 7, 8, 3', 4', 5'-heptamethoxyflavone (9), showed potent inhibitory activity against hCAII with a minimal effective concentration of 10.8 and 21.5 μM, respectively, while they both exhibited no cytotoxic effect, even at the highest concentration tested (170 μM). The results from an in vitro esterase assay of the two candidates confirmed their hCAII inhibitory activity with IC₅₀ values of 24.0 and 34.3 μM, respectively. To investigate the potential inhibition mechanism of compound 4, in silico molecular docking was performed using the FlexX and SwissDock software. This revealed that compound 4 coordinated with the Zn²⁺ ion in the hCAII active site through its methoxy oxygen at a distance of 1.60 Å (FlexX) or 2.29 Å (SwissDock). The interaction energy of compound 4 with hCAII was -13.36 kcal/mol. Thus, compound 4 is a potent novel flavonoid-based hCAII inhibitor and may be useful for further anti-CAII design and development.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.447-453
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• 2009

The quorum sensing (QS) inhibitors that antagonize TraR, a receptor protein for N-3-oxo-octanoyl-L-homoserine lactones (3-oxo-C8-HSL), a QS signal of Agrobacterium tumefaciens were developed. The structural analogues of 3-oxo-C8-HSL were designed by in silico molecular modeling using SYBYL packages, and synthesized by the solid phase organic synthesis (SPOS) method, where the carboxamide bond of 3-oxo-C8-HSL was replaced with a nicotinamide or a sulfonamide bond to make derivatives of N-nicotinyl-L-homoserine lactones or N-sulfonyl-L-homoserine lactones. The in vivo inhibitory activities of these compounds against QS signaling were assayed using reporter systems and compared with the estimated binding energies from the modeling study. This comparison showed fairly good correlation, suggesting that the in silico interpretation of ligand-receptor structures can be a valuable tool for the pre-design of better competitive inhibitors. In addition, these inhibitors also showed anti-biofilm activities against Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.249-255
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• 2005

Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) is primarily responsible for human hypertension. Current ACE drugs show serious cough and angiodema health problems due to the un-specific activity of the drug to ACE protein. The availability of ACE crystal structure (1UZF) provided the plausible biological orientation of inhibitors to ACE active site (C-domain). Three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D-QSAR) models have been constructed using the comparative molecula. field analysis (CoMFA) and comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA) for a series of 28 ACE inhibitors. Alignment for CoMFA obtained by docking ligands to 1UZF protein using FlexX program showed better statistical model as compared to superposition of corresponding atoms. The statistical parameters indicate reasonable models for both CoMFA (q$^2$ = 0.530, r$^2$ = 0.998) and CoMSIA (q$^2$= 0.518, r$^2$ = 0.990). The 3D-QSAR analyses provide valuable information for the design of ACE inhibitors with potent activity towards C-domain of ACE. The group substitutions involving the phenyl ring and carbon chain at the propionyl and sulfonyl moieties of captopril are essential for specific activity to ACE.