Identification of new quorum sensing autoinducer binding partners in Pseudomonas aeruginosa using photoaffinity probes.

Many bacterial species, including the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, employ a mechanism of intercellular communication known as quorum sensing (QS), which is mediated by signalling molecules termed autoinducers. The Pseudomonas Quinolone Signal (PQS) and 2-Heptyl-3H-4-Quinolone (HHQ) are autoinducers in P. aeruginosa, and they are considered important factors in the progress of infections by this clinically relevant organism. Herein, we report the development of HHQ and PQS photoaffinity-based probes for chemical proteomic studies. Application of these probes led to the identification of previously unsuspected putative HHQ and PQS binders, thereby providing new insights into QS at a proteomic level and revealing potential new small molecule targets for virulence attenuation strategies. Notably, we found evidence that PQS binds RhlR, the cognate receptor in the Rhl QS sub-system of P. aeruginosa. This is the first indication of interaction between the Rhl and PQS systems at the protein/ligand level, which suggests that RhlR should be considered a highly attractive target for antivirulence strategies.

A novel complexity-to-diversity strategy for the diversity-oriented synthesis of structurally diverse and complex macrocycles from quinine.

Recent years have witnessed a global decline in the productivity and advancement of the pharmaceutical industry. A major contributing factor to this is the downturn in drug discovery successes. This can be attributed to the lack of structural (particularly scaffold) diversity and structural complexity exhibited by current small molecule screening collections. Macrocycles have been shown to exhibit a diverse range of biological properties, with over 100 natural product-derived examples currently marketed as FDA-approved drugs. Despite this, synthetic macrocycles are widely considered to be a poorly explored structural class within drug discovery, which can be attributed to their synthetic intractability. Herein we describe a novel complexity-to-diversity strategy for the diversity-oriented synthesis of novel, structurally complex and diverse macrocyclic scaffolds from natural product starting materials. This approach exploits the inherent structural (including functional) and stereochemical complexity of natural products in order to rapidly generate diversity and complexity. Readily-accessible natural product-derived intermediates serve as structural templates which can be divergently functionalized with different building blocks to generate a diverse range of acyclic precursors. Subsequent macrocyclisation then furnishes compounds that are each based around a distinct molecular scaffold. Thus, high levels of library scaffold diversity can be rapidly achieved. In this proof-of-concept study, the natural product quinine was used as the foundation for library synthesis, and six novel structurally diverse, highly complex and functionalized macrocycles were generated.

Concise synthesis of rare pyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-2-ones and related nitrogen-rich bicyclic scaffolds with a ring-junction nitrogen.

Pyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-2-ones represent a pharmaceutically interesting class of heterocycles. The structurally related pyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-4-ones are associated with a broad range of useful biological properties. Furthermore, quinolizinone-type scaffolds of these sorts with a bridgehead nitrogen are expected to display interesting physico-chemical properties. However, pyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-2-ones are largely under-represented in current small molecule screening libraries and the physical and biological properties of the pyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-2-one scaffold have been poorly explored (indeed, the same can be said for unsaturated bicyclic compounds with a bridgehead nitrogen in general). Herein, we report the development of a new strategy for the concise synthesis of substituted pyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-2-ones from readily available starting materials. The synthetic route involved the acylation of the lithium amide bases of 2-aminopyridines with alkynoate esters to form alkynamides, which were then cyclised under thermal conditions. The use of lithium amide anions ensured excellent regioselectivity for the 2-oxo-isomer over the undesired 4-oxo-isomer, which offers a distinct advantage over some existing methods for the synthesis of pyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-2-ones. Notably, different aminoazines could also be employed in this approach, which enabled access to several very unusual bicyclic systems with higher nitrogen contents. This methodology thus represents an important contribution towards the synthesis of pyrido[1,2-a]pyrimidin-2-ones and other rare azabicycles with a ring-junction nitrogen. These heterocycles represent attractive structural templates for drug discovery.

Design and chance in the self-assembly of macromolecules.

The principles of self-assembly are described for naturally occurring macromolecules and for complex assemblies formed from simple synthetic constituents. Many biological molecules owe their function and specificity to their three-dimensional folds, and, in many cases, these folds are specified entirely by the sequence of the constituent amino acids or nucleic acids, and without the requirement for additional machinery to guide the formation of the structure. Thus sequence may often be sufficient to guide the assembly process, starting from denatured components having little or no folds, to the completion state with the stable, equilibrium fold that encompasses functional activity. Self-assembly of homopolymeric structures does not necessarily preserve symmetry, and some polymeric assemblies are organized so that their chemically identical subunits pack stably in geometrically non-equivalent ways. Self-assembly can also involve scaffolds that lack structure, as seen in the multi-enzyme assembly, the degradosome. The stable self-assembly of lipids into dynamic membraneous sheets is also described, and an example is shown in which a synthetic detergent can assemble into membrane layers.

Diversity oriented synthesis: a challenge for synthetic chemists.

This article covers the diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS) of small molecules in order to generate a collection of pure compounds that are attractive for lead generation in a phenotypic, high-throughput screening approach useful for chemical genetics and drug discovery programmes. Nature synthesizes a rich structural diversity of small molecules, however, unfortunately, there are some disadvantages with using natural product sources for diverse small-molecule discovery. Nevertheless we have a lot to learn from nature. The efficient chemical synthesis of structural diversity (and complexity) is the aim of DOS. Highlights of this article include a discussion of nature's and synthetic chemists' strategies to obtain structural diversity and an analysis of molecular descriptors used to classify compounds. The assessment of how successful one diversity-oriented synthesis is vs another is subjective; therefore we use freely available software (www.cheminformatics.org/diversity) to assess structural diversity in any combinatorial synthesis.

A one-bead, one-stock solution approach to chemical genetics: part 2.

BACKGROUND: Chemical genetics provides a systematic means to study biology using small molecules to effect spatial and temporal control over protein function. As complementary approaches, phenotypic and proteomic screens of structurally diverse and complex small molecules may yield not only interesting individual probes of biological function, but also global information about small molecule collections and the interactions of their members with biological systems. RESULTS: We report a general high-throughput method for converting high-capacity beads into arrayed stock solutions amenable to both phenotypic and proteomic assays. Polystyrene beads from diversity-oriented syntheses were arrayed individually into wells. Bound compounds were cleaved, eluted, and resuspended to generate 'mother plates' of stock solutions. The second phase of development of our technology platform includes optimized cleavage and elution conditions, a novel bead arraying method, and robotic distribution of stock solutions of small molecules into 'daughter plates' for direct use in chemical genetic assays. This library formatting strategy enables what we refer to as annotation screening, in which every member of a library is annotated with biological assay data. This phase was validated by arraying and screening 708 members of an encoded 4320-member library of structurally diverse and complex dihydropyrancarboxamides. CONCLUSIONS: Our 'one-bead, multiple-stock solution' library formatting strategy is a central element of a technology platform aimed at advancing chemical genetics. Annotation screening provides a means for biology to inform chemistry, complementary to the way that chemistry can inform biology in conventional ('investigator-initiated') small molecule screens.

Discrimination of linguistic stress in early infancy.

The high-amplitude sucking (HAS) paradigm was used to evaluate the ability of one- to four-month-old infants to discriminate two artificially synthesized disyllables (/ba bá and bá ba/) which differed solely in the location of perceived stress. One hundred and twenty infants were tested in two experiments. A modification of the HAS paradigm was developed, in which both stimuli are alternated postshift. The results of the first experiment demonstrate that young infants are able to discriminate the acoustic correlates of stress location (fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration) and that the modified HAS paradigm produces significantly stronger evidence for this discrimination than does the standard paradigm. The second experiment determined that infants can discriminate durational differences alone, without concomitant variations in the naturally correlated parameters of fundamental frequency and intensity.