Inhibitor compounds, linear measurements

The inhibition rate for all inhibitor assays was measured from the initial velocities within the linear time-activity relationships of the control and inhibited samples. The standard deviations were calculated for the Iso values of the compounds against the three enzymes used and the maximal values were used to compare the statistical variability within each assay test. 

This is a linear equation, and we can thus expect kobs to track linearly with inhibitor concentration for an inhibitor conforming to the mechanism of scheme B. As illustrated in Figure 6.4, a replot of kobs as a function of [/] will yield a straight line with slope equal to k3 and y-intercept equal to k4. It should be noted that in such an experiment the measured value of k3 is an apparent value as this association rate constant may be affected by the concentration of substrate used in the experiment, depending on the inhibition modality of the compound (vide infra). Hence the apparent value of Ki (Kfw) for an inhibitor of this type can be calculated from the ratio of... 

The ALIS-based off-rate measurement method was applied to a proprietary series of Zap-70 Kinase inhibitors. First, an ACE50 experiment was conducted to demonstrate that the compounds bind the same site as the quench reagent staurospor-ine. As shown in Fig. 3.15, sigmoidal plots indicate that, with the exception of one compound, the ACE50 values were all very similar to one-another. Linear ratio plots of the same ACE50 data confirm that the compounds all bind isosteri-cally with respect to the quench reagent, a necessary prerequisite for effective competition. 

A high-throughput assay for bacterial RNA polymerase has been successfully developed and validated using a 96-well, automated format [70], The reaction mixture contained a DNA template, nucleotide substrates (NTPs), supplemented with a-33P-labeled CTP in Tris-acetate buffer (pH 6.8). The polymerase reaction was carried out at 34°C for 40 min (providing linear kinetics). The effect of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), the usual solvent for test compounds used in a screen, was taken into consideration. The radiolabeled RNA transcripts were allowed to bind diethyl aminoethyl (DEAE) beads, which were then separated via filtration, and radioactivity associated with the wells was quantitated to measure the RNA polymerase activity. The standard deviation of the measured activity was typically < 15% of the average. Use of this assay to screen for RNA polymerase inhibitors from chemical libraries and natural products led to the identification of DNA intercalators (known to inhibit RNA polymerase activity), rifampicin (a known inhibitors of RNA polymerase), and several derivatives of rifampicin from Actinomycetes extracts. Therefore this assay can be reliably utilized to detect novel inhibitors of bacterial RNA polymerase. 

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