eLife (Oct 2017)

A novel central nervous system-penetrating protease inhibitor overcomes human immunodeficiency virus 1 resistance with unprecedented aM to pM potency

  • Manabu Aoki,
  • Hironori Hayashi,
  • Kalapala Venkateswara Rao,
  • Debananda Das,
  • Nobuyo Higashi-Kuwata,
  • Haydar Bulut,
  • Hiromi Aoki-Ogata,
  • Yuki Takamatsu,
  • Ravikiran S Yedidi,
  • David A Davis,
  • Shin-ichiro Hattori,
  • Noriko Nishida,
  • Kazuya Hasegawa,
  • Nobutoki Takamune,
  • Prasanth R Nyalapatla,
  • Heather L Osswald,
  • Hirofumi Jono,
  • Hideyuki Saito,
  • Robert Yarchoan,
  • Shogo Misumi,
  • Arun K Ghosh,
  • Hiroaki Mitsuya

DOI
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.28020
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6

Abstract

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Antiretroviral therapy for HIV-1 infection/AIDS has significantly extended the life expectancy of HIV-1-infected individuals and reduced HIV-1 transmission at very high rates. However, certain individuals who initially achieve viral suppression to undetectable levels may eventually suffer treatment failure mainly due to adverse effects and the emergence of drug-resistant HIV-1 variants. Here, we report GRL-142, a novel HIV-1 protease inhibitor containing an unprecedented 6-5-5-ring-fused crown-like tetrahydropyranofuran, which has extremely potent activity against all HIV-1 strains examined with IC50 values of attomolar-to-picomolar concentrations, virtually no effects on cellular growth, extremely high genetic barrier against the emergence of drug-resistant variants, and favorable intracellular and central nervous system penetration. GRL-142 forms optimum polar, van der Waals, and halogen bond interactions with HIV-1 protease and strongly blocks protease dimerization, demonstrating that combined multiple optimizing elements significantly enhance molecular and atomic interactions with a target protein and generate unprecedentedly potent and practically favorable agents.

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