Volume 19, Issue 11 e202200231
Research Article

Synthesis, Docking Study and Biological Evaluation of Amide-Based Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase Inhibitors with Novel Secondary Pharmacophore of Pyrimidin-2-ol

Leila Hejazi

Leila Hejazi

Personalized Medicine and Genometabolomics Research Center, Hope Generation Foundation, Tehran, Iran

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, No. 2660, Vali-e-Asr., Tehran, 1991953381 Iran

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Abraham Ebadi

Abraham Ebadi

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, No. 2660, Vali-e-Asr., Tehran, 1991953381 Iran

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Zeynab Fakhar

Zeynab Fakhar

Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Drug Design (LBD), Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

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Maryam Nazari

Maryam Nazari

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, No. 2660, Vali-e-Asr., Tehran, 1991953381 Iran

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Elham Rezaee

Corresponding Author

Elham Rezaee

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, No. 2660, Vali-e-Asr., Tehran, 1991953381 Iran

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Sayyed Abbas Tabatabai

Corresponding Author

Sayyed Abbas Tabatabai

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, No. 2660, Vali-e-Asr., Tehran, 1991953381 Iran

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First published: 24 September 2022

Abstract

Soluble epoxide hydrolase enzyme (sEH) is one of the most promising and emerging targets to develop drugs for multiple disease indications, including hypertension, diabetes, stroke, dyslipidemia, pain, etc. Most inhibitor scaffolds have a urea or amide moiety to mimic the active-site transition state. In this regard, we developed a series of amide sEH inhibitors with a pyrimidin-2-ol ring as a new secondary pharmacophore, which was subjected to in vitro evaluation. Compound 4w (4-chloro-N-{4-[6-(4-chlorophenyl)-2-hydroxypyrimidin-4-yl]phenyl}benzamide), which contains 4-chloro substituent in both terminal phenyl rings, exhibited the most inhibitory activity against sEH with an IC50 value of 1.2 nM. Molecular docking analysis of the synthesized compounds revealed that the greater number of hydrogen bonding interactions of the amide group as the primary pharmacophore with Asp-353, Tyr-383, and Tyr-466 as the key catalytic residue triad of the enzyme played a critical role and led to a more favorable binding affinity. Pharmacokinetic properties of the synthesized compounds were calculated in silico, and all ADMET indices fell within acceptable ranges. Altogether, the results of this work could provide useful information on 4,6-diphenylpyrimidin-2-olas sEH inhibitors which can be utilized in further development in this area.

Graphical Abstract

Conflict of interest

All authors declare no conflict of interest, financial or otherwise.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available in the supplementary material of this article.

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