Frontiers in Pharmacology (Mar 2022)

A Set of Experimentally Validated Decoys for the Human CC Chemokine Receptor 7 (CCR7) Obtained by Virtual Screening

  • Matic Proj,
  • Steven De Jonghe,
  • Tom Van Loy,
  • Marko Jukič,
  • Marko Jukič,
  • Anže Meden,
  • Luka Ciber,
  • Črtomir Podlipnik,
  • Uroš Grošelj,
  • Janez Konc,
  • Dominique Schols,
  • Stanislav Gobec

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.855653
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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We present a state-of-the-art virtual screening workflow aiming at the identification of novel CC chemokine receptor 7 (CCR7) antagonists. Although CCR7 is associated with a variety of human diseases, such as immunological disorders, inflammatory diseases, and cancer, this target is underexplored in drug discovery and there are no potent and selective CCR7 small molecule antagonists available today. Therefore, computer-aided ligand-based, structure-based, and joint virtual screening campaigns were performed. Hits from these virtual screenings were tested in a CCL19-induced calcium signaling assay. After careful evaluation, none of the in silico hits were confirmed to have an antagonistic effect on CCR7. Hence, we report here a valuable set of 287 inactive compounds that can be used as experimentally validated decoys.

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