Targeted covalent inhibitors are compounds that form covalent bonds with their target and suppress its function. Preferably, the non-covalent core of the molecule binds with high affinity to the active site of the target, whereupon the weakly electrophilic warhead forms a covalent bond with a nucleophilic residue, resulting in inhibition. The nucleophile of interest is usually the thiol group of cysteine residues, but because of their low abundance in proteins, lysine, serine, threonine, aspartate, and glutamate have also been explored recently. The primary ε-amine of lysine can react with the electrophilic warhead, yet protonation of the amine at physiological pH substantially decreases its nucleophilicity. For lysine to be suitable as a target nucleophile, the pKa value of the ε-amine should be low enough for the amine to be at least partially in unprotonated form.
In this master's thesis, we focused on selective inhibitors of monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B). Our goal was to develop targeted covalent inhibitors for lysine 296 near the active site, which we identified as a suitable target because the predicted pKa value of the ε-amine group is 7,3. We started with 4`-O-benzyl tyramine containing the benzyloxy pharmacophore archetypal for selective MAO-B inhibitors.
To synthesize the designed MAO-B inhibitors, we used classical organic chemistry approaches. Electrophilic warheads were attached to the core structure by amine alkylation or by the use of activated acid derivatives (carboxylic or sulfonic) to give urea, amide, ester, and thioester derivatives.
We synthesized 31 4`-O-benzyl-tyramine derivatives and assayed for their inhibition of monoamine oxidase A and B. Compounds 12, 24, 28a, 34, 42, 43b, 46, and 47b inhibited MAO-B with IC50 values lower than 100 nM. The optimal warheads were carbamoyl and sulfamoyl fluorides, nitriles, imidazolides, and 1,2,3-triazolides. Regardless of the potent MAO-B inhibition by various derivatives, the most promising compound for further optimization is 28a, the most potent MAO-B inhibitor among the compounds (24, 28a, 28b) for which covalent inhibition is proposed.
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