Statins structures

Analysis of the statin structures reveals that they possess a common 3,5-di-hydroxy-haptanoic acid or 3,5-dihydroxy-6-heptenoic acid or their lactonic form as the characteristic pharmacophore moiety bound to a ring system R (Fig. 4.6). 

There are currently marketed four naturally derived statins (lovastatin, pravastatin, simvastatin, and rosuvas-tatin) and two synthetic statins (atorvastatin and fluvas-tatin). The structure of these statins is shown in Fig. 2. 

HMG-CoA-Reductase Inhibitors. Figure 2 The chemical structure of the fungal-derived and the synthetic HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins). 

It is worth noting here that inhibitors that interact with enzyme active site functionalities in ways that mimic the structure of covalent intermediates of catalysis can bind with very high affinity. This was seen in Chapter 1 with the example of statine-and hydroxyethylene-based inhibitors of aspartic proteases other examples of this inhibitor design strategy will be seen in subsequent chapters of this text. 

The free energy perturbation calculations on mutation of the central statine residue of pepstatin to its dehydroxy and other derivatives were carried out using the window method. The crystal structure reported by Suguna et al.l4 l5was used for these calculations. In most simulations, the mutations were achieved either in 101 or 51 windows with 0.4 ps of equilibration and 0.4 ps of data collection at each window. The calculation for each mutation was repeated in water to determine the difference in the free energies of solvation and to complete the thermodynamic cycle. 

The mutation of the hydroxyl group positioned in R-configuration at the C(3) atom of the central statine (rSta) residue of the inhibitor gives rise to AAGbind of -0.51 kcal/mol, which is very close to the experimental value of -0.8 kcal/mol. It may be noted here that the starting configuration of the inhibitor in the enzyme-inhibitor complex is the same as that of pepstatin. The crystal structure of rhizopus pepsin or any other aspartic proteinase... 

K. Suguna, E. A. Padlan, R. Bott, J. Boger, K. D. Parris, and D. R. Davies, Structures of complexes of rhizopus pepsin with pepstatin and other statine-containing inhibitors, Proteins 13 195 (1992). 

Cruciani et al. [92] have developed the program Metasite for the prediction of the site of oxidative metabolism by CYP450 enzymes. Metasite uses GRID molecular interaction fields to fingerprint both structures of CYP450s (from homology models or crystal structures) and test substrates and then matches the fields. Zhou et al. [93] showed that Metasite was able to correctly predict the site(s) of metabolism 78% of the time for 227 CYP3A4 substrates. Caron et al. [94] used Metasite to predict the oxidative metabolism of seven statins. 

Figure 2.11 Plot of compounds developed for different target classes based on a principal components analysis (PCA) of 2D structure-based property fingerprints. Compounds are coded according to their target class (triangle, PDE square, 5HT receptor diamond, statin circle, F-quinoline antibiotics) and clinical status at the time (gray, ok yellow, clearance issue red,...

Activators and inhibitors regulate not the amount of enzyme protein but the activity ( efficiency ) of that which is present. Two principal mechanisms of control are (i) competitive and (ii) allosteric. Competitive control (inhibition) occurs when a compound which is structurally similar to the true substrate binds to the active site of the enzyme. This is how a number of drugs and poisons bring about their effect. For example, a group of therapeutic drugs called statins are used to treat heart disease because by inhibiting a key enzyme called HMGCoA reductase, they reduce the hepatic synthesis of cholesterol and therefore the plasma concentration of that lipid. 

Lipitor molecule at active site. Source. Istvan ES, Deisenhofer J. Structural mechanism for statin inhibition of HMG—CoA reductase, Science 292 1160 (2001). http //www.fda. gov/medwatch/SAFETY/2004/jul PI/Lipitor PI.pdf [accessed August 20, 2007]. Used with permission.)... 

Simvastatin, a conjugated alkene, can polymerise as a result of peroxyl radical addition. The peroxide-linked oligomers can be subsequently cleaved to produce epoxides, which in turn degrade to form ketones and alcohols [69]. Inclusion of vitamin E (a-tocopherol) into formulations was found to inhibit chain-oxidation of simvastatin, lovastatin and other structurally related statins. 

A third dataset was built in order to demonstrate that the descriptor is relevant for estimating binding affinity in a QSAR analysis. This last dataset contains 49 HIV-1 protease inhibitors, the 3D coordinates of which were those used by Pastor et al. (30). It has the four transition-state isosteres—hydroxy ethylene, hydroxyethylamine, statine, and a symmetrical diol. The X-ray structures of molecules numbered 1 and 3-34 have been reported (31), whereas molecules numbered 35-50 were modeled on the crystallographic structure of the complex of HIV-1 protease with L-689,502 solved at 2.25 A resolution (32). The binding affinity is expressed as pIC50 values. 

Receptors can mediate the action of endogenous signalling compounds and may therefore be viewed as regulatory proteins. Such receptors are the physiological targets for neurotransmitters and hormones. Other types of receptors include enzyme proteins, transport proteins and structural proteins. For example, statins inhibit an enzyme catalysing the synthesis of cholesterol and loop diuretics inhibit an enzyme that facilitates the re-uptake of salt in primary urine. 

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