Elucidation of the binding mechanism of renin using a wide array of computational techniques and biological assays.

We investigate the binding mechanism in renin complexes, involving three drugs (remikiren, zankiren and enalkiren) and one lead compound, which was selected after screening the ZINC database. For this purpose, we used ab initio methods (the effective fragment potential, the variational perturbation theory, the energy decomposition analysis, the atoms-in-molecules), docking, molecular dynamics, and the MM-PBSA method. A biological assay for the lead compound has been performed to validate the theoretical findings. Importantly, binding free energy calculations for the three drug complexes are within 3 kcal/mol of the experimental values, thus further justifying our computational protocol, which has been validated through previous studies on 11 drug-protein systems. The main elements of the discovered mechanism are: (i) minor changes are induced to renin upon drug binding, (ii) the three drugs form an extensive network of hydrogen bonds with renin, whilst the lead compound presented diminished interactions, (iii) ligand binding in all complexes is driven by favorable van der Waals interactions and the nonpolar contribution to solvation, while the lead compound is associated with diminished van der Waals interactions compared to the drug-bound forms of renin, and (iv) the environment (H2O/Na(+)) has a small effect on the renin-remikiren interaction.

Isoxazole substituted chromans against oxidative stress-induced neuronal damage.

We have previously reported that catechol-bearing regioisomers of 5-isoxazolyl-6-hydroxy-chroman display higher in vitro neuroprotective activity, compared to hybrids with other nitrogen heterocycles, but their activity is hampered by cytotoxicity at higher concentrations. In an effort to discover non-cytotoxic isoxazole substituted chromans of high neuroprotective activity, 20 new 3- and 5-substituted (chroman-5-yl)-isoxazoles and (chroman-2-yl)-isoxazoles were synthesized using the copper(I)-catalysed cycloaddition reaction between in situ generated nitrile oxides and terminal acetylenes. An additional aim was to further explore the effect of the isoxazole ring substituents on the neuroprotective activity. The activity of these compounds against oxidative stress-induced death (oxytosis) of neuronal HT22 cells was evaluated and interesting SARs for this group of analogues were derived. The vast majority of new chroman analogues displayed high in vitro neuroprotective activity displaying EC(50) values below 1 µM and lacked cytotoxicity. The position of substituents on the isoxazole ring influences the activity of the regioisomers, with the 3-aryl-5-(chroman-5-yl)-isoxazoles, 17 and 18 and bis-chroman 20 displaying higher neuroprotective activity (EC(50)∼0.3 µM) compared to other (chroman-5-yl) and (chroman-2-yl)-isoxazoles.