Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus papain-like novel protease inhibitors: design, synthesis, protein-ligand X-ray structure and biological evaluation
Ghosh, A.K., Takayama, J., Rao, K.V., Ratia, K., Chaudhuri, R., Mulhearn, D.C., Lee, H., Nichols, D.B., Baliji, S., Baker, S.C., Johnson, M.E., Mesecar, A.D.(2010) J Med Chem 53: 4968-4979
- PubMed: 20527968 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/jm1004489
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
3MJ5 - PubMed Abstract: 
The design, synthesis, X-ray crystal structure, molecular modeling, and biological evaluation of a series of new generation SARS-CoV PLpro inhibitors are described. A new lead compound 3 (6577871) was identified via high-throughput screening of a diverse chemical library. Subsequently, we carried out lead optimization and structure-activity studies to provide a series of improved inhibitors that show potent PLpro inhibition and antiviral activity against SARS-CoV infected Vero E6 cells. Interestingly, the (S)-Me inhibitor 15 h (enzyme IC(50) = 0.56 microM; antiviral EC(50) = 9.1 microM) and the corresponding (R)-Me 15 g (IC(50) = 0.32 microM; antiviral EC(50) = 9.1 microM) are the most potent compounds in this series, with nearly equivalent enzymatic inhibition and antiviral activity. A protein-ligand X-ray structure of 15 g-bound SARS-CoV PLpro and a corresponding model of 15 h docked to PLpro provide intriguing molecular insight into the ligand-binding site interactions.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, 560 Oval Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA. akghosh@purdue.edu