Discovery of novel and cardioselective diltiazem-like calcium channel blockers via virtual screening.

With the effort to discover new chemotypes blocking L-type calcium channels (LTCCs), ligand-based virtual screening was applied with a specific interest toward the diltiazem binding site. Roughly 50000 commercially available compounds served as a database for screening. The filtering through predicted pharmacokinetic properties and structural requirements reduced the initial database to a few compounds for which the similarity was calculated toward two template molecules, diltiazem and 4-chloro-Ncyclopropyl- N-(4-piperidinyl)benzene-sulfonamide, the most interesting hit of a previous screening experiment. For 18 compounds, inotropic and chronotropic activity as well as the vasorelaxant effect on guinea pig were studied "in vitro", and for the most promising, binding studies to the diltiazem site were carried out. The procedure yielded several hits, confirming in silico techniques to be useful for finding new chemotypes. In particular, N-[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]-3-hydroxy-2-naphthamide, N,Ndimethyl- N'-(2-pyridin-3-ylquinolin-4-yl)ethane-1,2-diamine, 2-[(4-chlorophenyl)(pyridin-2-yl)methoxy]- N,N-dimethylethanamine (carbinoxamine), and 7-[2-(diethylamino)ethoxy]-2H-chromen-2-one revealed interesting activity and binding to the benzothiazepine site.

Imidazo[2,1-b]thiazole system: a scaffold endowing dihydropyridines with selective cardiodepressant activity.

The synthesis, characterization, and functional in vitro assays in cardiac tissues and smooth muscle (vascular and nonvascular) of a number of 4-imidazo[2,1- b]thiazole-1,4-dihydropyridines are reported. The binding properties for the novel compounds have been investigated and the interaction with the binding site common to other aryl-dihydropyridines has been demonstrated. Interestingly, the novel 4-aryl-dihydropyridines are L-type calcium channel blockers with a peculiar pharmacological behavior. Indeed, the imidazo[2,1- b]thiazole system is found to confer to the dihydropyridine scaffold an inotropic and/or chronotropic cardiovascular activity with a high selectivity toward the nonvascular tissue. Finally, molecular modeling studies were undertaken for the most representative compounds with the aim of describing the binding properties of the new ligands at molecular level and to rationalize the found structure-activity relationship data. Due to the observed pharmacological behavior of our compounds, they might be promising agents for the treatment of specific cardiovascular pathologies such as cardiac hypertrophy and ischemia.

Diltiazem analogues: the last ten years on structure activity relationships.

Cardiovascular diseases as hypertension, angina and/or supraventricular arrhythmias are among the most important death causes in the world. For the treatment of heart pathologies, calcium channel entry blockers are very important drugs, owing to their therapeutic versatility. Although few calcium antagonists described until today are structurally related to diltiazem and to the benzothiazepine class, the still high pharmaceutical interest on diltiazem analogues justifies this review. Diltiazem and its first analogues developed in the early '70s became popular in the '80s, and were pharmacologically characterized for a long time. It is in the '90s that several research groups carried out structural variations identifying novel scaffolds for diltiazem-related compounds, with significant calcium antagonist behaviour. Recently, a series of thiazino-oxadiazolone derivatives were identified as potent and selective antagonists for calcium influx into cardiac cells, and they were subsequently used to search for novel chemotypes by means of virtual screening techniques. The resulting hits could open interesting perspectives for the development of drugs to treat cardiovascular diseases. In the present review, an updated collection of diltiazem analogues is reported over the last ten years. The chemical structure and the structure activity relationships will be given, with additional mention to the potential therapeutic applications.