Seiya Kitamura, Qinheng Zheng, Jordan L. Woehl, Angelo Solania, Emily Chen, Nicholas Dillon, Mitchell V. Hull, Miyako Kotaniguchi, John R. Cappiello, Shinichi Kitamura, Victor Nizet, K. Barry Sharpless, and Dennis W. Wolan
Journal of the American Chemical Society 2020
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b13652
Optimization of small-molecule probes or drugs is a synthetically lengthy, challenging, and resource-intensive process. Lack of automation and reliance on skilled medicinal chemists is cumbersome in both academic and industrial settings. Here, we demonstrate a high-throughput hit-to-lead process based on the biocompatible sulfur(VI) fluoride exchange (SuFEx) click chemistry. A high-throughput screening hit benzyl (cyanomethyl)carbamate (Ki = 8 μM) against a bacterial cysteine protease SpeB was modified with a SuFExable iminosulfur oxydifluoride [RN═S(O)F2] motif, rapidly diversified into 460 analogs in overnight reactions, and the products were directly screened to yield drug-like inhibitors with 480-fold higher potency (Ki = 18 nM). We showed that the improved molecule is active in a bacteria-host coculture. Since this SuFEx linkage reaction succeeds on picomole scale for direct screening, we anticipate our methodology can accelerate the development of robust biological probes and drug candidates.
A blog highlighting recent publications in the area of covalent modification of proteins, particularly relating to covalent-modifier drugs. @CovalentMod on Twitter and @covalentmod@mstdn.science on Mastodon
Covalent drug discovery using sulfur(VI) fluoride exchange warheads
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