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Aminopyrimidine-galactose hybrids are highly selective galectin-3 inhibitors

Dahlqvist, Alexander LU ; Zetterberg, Fredrik R. ; Leffler, Hakon LU and Nilsson, Ulf J. LU (2019) In MedChemComm 10(6). p.913-925
Abstract

Galectins are a family of carbohydrate recognition proteins involved in, among other things, modulating cell signalling and cell-environment interactions, giving them roles in several pathologies like cancer and idiopathic lung fibrosis. Hence, developing new galectin inhibitors with high affinity and high selectivity is important to be able to target such diseases. Most existing galectin inhibitors have a disaccharide scaffold, but there has been success as of late in developing monogalactoside inhibitors such as α-arylthioglycosides. Here, we report aminopyrimidine-derivatised galactosides as good galectin-3 inhibitors with affinities down to 1.7 μM and a more than 300-fold selectivity over galectin-1. Mutant studies replacing Arg144... (More)

Galectins are a family of carbohydrate recognition proteins involved in, among other things, modulating cell signalling and cell-environment interactions, giving them roles in several pathologies like cancer and idiopathic lung fibrosis. Hence, developing new galectin inhibitors with high affinity and high selectivity is important to be able to target such diseases. Most existing galectin inhibitors have a disaccharide scaffold, but there has been success as of late in developing monogalactoside inhibitors such as α-arylthioglycosides. Here, we report aminopyrimidine-derivatised galactosides as good galectin-3 inhibitors with affinities down to 1.7 μM and a more than 300-fold selectivity over galectin-1. Mutant studies replacing Arg144 in galectin-3 with lysine and serine support the hypothesis that the binding of the derivatives involves interactions with Arg144. Molecular dynamics simulations converged to stable poses of the inhibitor aminopyrimidine moiety with polar interactions with Asp148 and Ser237, while the aryl-aminopyrimidine ring stacked onto the side chain of Arg144. Hence, combining an aminopyrimidine motif with a phenyl α-thiogalactoside motif offers an attractive route towards highly selective galectin-3 inhibitors.

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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
MedChemComm
volume
10
issue
6
pages
13 pages
publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry
external identifiers
  • scopus:85067667914
  • pmid:31303989
ISSN
2040-2503
DOI
10.1039/c9md00183b
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
64fe4cf5-7a97-4bf7-a470-c04c19f46a3c
date added to LUP
2019-07-08 13:43:45
date last changed
2024-04-02 12:27:11
@article{64fe4cf5-7a97-4bf7-a470-c04c19f46a3c,
  abstract     = {{<p>Galectins are a family of carbohydrate recognition proteins involved in, among other things, modulating cell signalling and cell-environment interactions, giving them roles in several pathologies like cancer and idiopathic lung fibrosis. Hence, developing new galectin inhibitors with high affinity and high selectivity is important to be able to target such diseases. Most existing galectin inhibitors have a disaccharide scaffold, but there has been success as of late in developing monogalactoside inhibitors such as α-arylthioglycosides. Here, we report aminopyrimidine-derivatised galactosides as good galectin-3 inhibitors with affinities down to 1.7 μM and a more than 300-fold selectivity over galectin-1. Mutant studies replacing Arg144 in galectin-3 with lysine and serine support the hypothesis that the binding of the derivatives involves interactions with Arg144. Molecular dynamics simulations converged to stable poses of the inhibitor aminopyrimidine moiety with polar interactions with Asp148 and Ser237, while the aryl-aminopyrimidine ring stacked onto the side chain of Arg144. Hence, combining an aminopyrimidine motif with a phenyl α-thiogalactoside motif offers an attractive route towards highly selective galectin-3 inhibitors.</p>}},
  author       = {{Dahlqvist, Alexander and Zetterberg, Fredrik R. and Leffler, Hakon and Nilsson, Ulf J.}},
  issn         = {{2040-2503}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{6}},
  pages        = {{913--925}},
  publisher    = {{Royal Society of Chemistry}},
  series       = {{MedChemComm}},
  title        = {{Aminopyrimidine-galactose hybrids are highly selective galectin-3 inhibitors}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c9md00183b}},
  doi          = {{10.1039/c9md00183b}},
  volume       = {{10}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}