Development of a quantitative structure activity relations (QSAR) model to guide the design of fluorescent dyes for detecting amyloid fibrils.

Quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) studies were performed on a set of polymethine compounds to develop new fluorescent probes for detecting amyloid fibrils. Two different approaches were evaluated for developing a predictive model: part least squares (PLS) regression and an artificial neural network (ANN). A set of 60 relevant molecular descriptors were selected by performing principal component analysis on more than 1600 calculated molecular descriptors. Through QSAR analysis, two predictive models were developed. The final versions produced an average prediction accuracy of 72.5 and 84.2% for the linear PLS and the non-linear ANN procedures, respectively. A test of the ANN model was performed by using it to predict the activity, i.e., staining or non-staining of amyloid fibrils, using 320 compounds. The five candidates whose greatest activities were selected by the ANN model underwent confirmation of their predicted properties by empirical testing. The results indicated that the ANN model potentially is useful for facilitating prediction of activity of untested compounds as dyes for detecting amyloid fibrils.

Tri- and pentamethine cyanine dyes for fluorescent detection of α-synuclein oligomeric aggregates.

The pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease that is the second most common neurodegenerative disease is associated with formation of different aggregates of α-synuclein (ASN), namely oligomers and amyloid fibrils. Current research is aimed on the design of fluorescent dyes for the detection of oligomeric aggregates, which are considered to be toxic and morbific spices. Fluorescent properties of series of benzothiazole trimethine and pentamethine cyanines were characterized in free state and in presence of monomeric, oligomeric and fibrilar ASN. The dyes with wide aromatic systems and bulky phenyl and alkyl substituents that are potentially able to interact with hydrophobic regions of oligomeric aggregates were selected for the studies. For majority of studied dyes noticeable changes in fluorescence characteristics were shown in the presence of fibrillar or oligomeric ASN, while the dyes slightly responded on the presence of monomeric protein. For pentamethine cyanine SL-631 and trimethine cyanine SH-299 certain specificity to oligomeric aggregates over fibrils was observed. Using these dyes at 10(-6) M concentration permits the detection of oligomeric ASN in the concentrations range of at least 0.2-2 microM. Pentamethine cyanine SL-631 is proposed as dye for fluorescent detection of oligomeric aggregates of ASN, while trimethine cyanine SH-299 is shown to be a sensitive probe both on oligomeric and fibrillar ASN. It is proposed that wide aromatic system of SL-631 pentamethine dye molecule could better fix on the less dense and structured oligomeric formation, while less bulky and more "crescent-shape" molecule of trimethine dye SH-299 could easier enter into the groove of beta-pleated structure.

Novel fluorescent trimethine cyanine dye 7519 for amyloid fibril inhibition assay.

Fluorescence spectroscopy was used to study the ability of dye 7519 to follow the transition of monomeric insulin into fibrils and applicability of the dye to the insulin aggregation inhibition assay. The commercially available classic amyloid stain, thioflavin T, was used as the reference dye. For selecting potential inhibitors, the QSAR approach was applied. Dye 7519 appeared to be suitable for monitoring insulin aggregation into fibrils in vitro. The properties of the dye allowed us to test it as a potential probe in the screening assay of potential inhibitors of insulin fibrillization. One hundred forty-four flavonoids were tested as potential inhibitors of amyloid fibril formation using the quantitative structure activity relationship approach. Among them, 10 candidates with high indexes of inhibition were selected for tests in vitro using dye 7519 and the reference amyloid dye thioflavine T. Using dye 7519 fluorescence, we found that two compounds had inhibitory effects on insulin amyloid formation. These results agree with inhibition data using the thioflavine T assay. Our studies demonstrated that the fluorescent cyanine dye 7519 is a sensitive probe for quantitative detection of insulin amyloid formation and can be applied to screen agents capable of affecting aggregation of amyloid proteins.

Specific fluorescent detection of fibrillar alpha-synuclein using mono- and trimethine cyanine dyes.

With the aim of searching of novel amyloid-specific fluorescent probes the ability of series of mono- and trimethine cyanines based on benzothiazole, pyridine and quinoline heterocycle end groups to recognize fibrillar formations of alpha-synuclein (ASN) was studied. For the first time it was revealed that monomethine cyanines can specifically increase their fluorescence in aggregated ASN presence. Dialkylamino-substituted monomethine cyanine T-284 and meso-ethyl-substituted trimethine cyanine SH-516 demonstrated the higher emission intensity and selectivity to aggregated ASN than classic amyloid stain Thioflavin T, and could be proposed as novel efficient fluorescent probes for fibrillar ASN detection. Studies of structure-function dependences have shown that incorporation of amino- or diethylamino- substituents into the 6-position of the benzothiazole heterocycle yields in a appearance of a selective fluorescent response to fibrillar alpha-synuclein presence. Performed calculations of molecular dimensions of studied cyanine dyes gave us the possibility to presume, that dyes bind with their long axes parallel to the fibril axis via insertion into the neat rows (so called 'channels') running along fibril.

Fluorescent properties of pentamethine cyanine dyes with cyclopentene and cyclohexene group in presence of biological molecules.

A series of pentamethine cyanine dyes with cyclohexene or cyclopentene group in polymethyne chain, assumed as DNA groove-binders, were studied as fluorescent probes for nucleic acids as well as for native and denatured proteins. It was revealed that the presence of methyl or dimethyl substituent in 5 position of the cyclohexene group hinders the formation of dye-DNA fluorescent complex, while the methyl substituent in 2 position leads to the increasing of the dye-DNA complex fluorescence intensity. The dyes SL-251, SL-1041, and SL-1046 containing methyl group in the 2 position of the cyclic group, are reported as bright DNA-sensitive dyes. The study of the dyes DNA-binding specificity demonstrated significant AT-preference that points to the groove-binding interaction mode. At the same time, the dyes SL-251, SL-377, and SL-957 with the 2-methyl substituted cyclohexene group were shown to be sensitive fluorescent dyes both for nonspecific (in SDS presence) proteins detection and for native BSA.