MedChemComm
Concise Article
binding affinity for PMV and, hence, inhibitory activity. The
PMV homology model provides evidence that reduced inhibi-
tory activity against PMV is likely due to the loss of key inter-
actions with PMV, due to the combination of conformational
9 J. A. Boddey, A. N. Hodder, S. Gunther, P. R. Gilson,
H. Patsiouras, E. A. Kapp, J. A. Pearce, T. F. de Koning-
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N-Methylation was seen to enhance metabolic stability and 11 M. Klemba and D. E. Goldberg, Mol. Biochem. Parasitol.,
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inhibition of PMV in vitro, and poor correlation with on-target 12 B. E. Sleebs, S. Lopaticki, D. S. Marapana, M. T. O'Neill,
activity in P. falciparum parasites, it was difficult to assess
whether these attributes had a positive outcome on improving
activity in a cellular context. Moreover, N-methylation appeared
to enhance the non-specic activity of compounds against
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strategy to improve cellular activity of peptide-like compounds. 14 T. F. de Koning-Ward, P. R. Gilson, J. A. Boddey, M. Rug,
PMV is an essential protease for survival of parasites in the
human host. This study shows that N-methylation of
compounds that potently inhibit PMV reduces their activity,
B. J. Smith, A. T. Papenfuss, P. R. Sanders, R. J. Lundie,
A. G. Maier, A. F. Cowman and B. S. Crabb, Nature, 2009,
459, 945–949.
conrming that PMV is highly sensitive to substrate alteration, 15 J. R. Beck, V. Muralidharan, A. Oksman and D. E. Goldberg,
and illuminates the challenges that lay ahead in the design of
peptidomimetics that target PMV.
Nature, 2014, 511, 592–595.
16 B. Elsworth, K. Matthews, C. Q. Nie, M. Kalanon,
S. C. Charnaud, P. R. Sanders, S. A. Chisholm,
N. A. Counihan, P. J. Shaw, P. Pino, J. A. Chan,
M. F. Azevedo, S. J. Rogerson, J. G. Beeson, B. S. Crabb,
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the National Health and Medical
Research Council of Australia (Project Grant 1010326 to J.A.B), a
CASS Foundation Science and Medicine grant (SM.12.4348 to 17 B. E. Sleebs, M. Gazdik, M. T. O'Neill, P. Rajasekaran,
JAB), the Australian Cancer Research Foundation, the Victorian
State Government Operational Infrastructure Support and
Australian Government NHMRC IRIISS. We thank the Univer-
S. Lopaticki, K. Lackovic, K. N. Lowes, B. J. Smith,
A. F. Cowman and J. A. Boddey, J. Med. Chem., 2014, 57,
7644–7662.
sity of Melbourne for the provision of an Australian Post- 18 J. Chatterjee, C. Gilon, A. Hoffman and H. Kessler, Acc.
graduate Award to M.G. A.F.C. is Howard Hughes Chem. Res., 2008, 41, 1331–1342.
International Scholar and an Australia Fellow of the NHMRC. 19 J. Chatterjee, F. Rechenmacher and H. Kessler, Angew.
J.A.B is an Australian Research Council QEII Fellow. We thank
Chem., Int. Ed., 2013, 52, 254–269.
Guillaume Lessene, Janet Weinstock and Andrew Powell for 20 S. Sagan, P. Karoyan, O. Lequin, G. Chassaing and
a
useful discussions.
S. Lavielle, Curr. Med. Chem., 2004, 11, 2799–2822.
21 F. Haviv, T. D. Fitzpatrick, R. E. Swenson, C. J. Nichols,
N. A. Mort, E. N. Bush, G. Diaz, G. Bammert and
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