Molecular Modeling of Enoyl Acyl Carrier Protein Reductase Inhibitors for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and their Pharmacokinetic Predictions

Tuberculosis (TB) is a deep public health concern worldwide worsened by reported multi drugresistant (MDR) and extensively drug- resistant (XDR) stralins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of the disease. A new class of thiadiazole inhibitors were reported to inhibit the enoyl-acyl transporter protein reductase (InhA) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTb). We performed here the computer-aided molecular design of novel thiadiazole (TDZ) inhibitors of InhA by in situ modifying the reference crystal structure of (S)-1-(5-((1-(2,6-difluorobenzyl)-1 H-pyrazol-3yl)amino)-1,3,4-thiadiazol-2-yl)-1-(4-methylthiazol-2-yl)ethanol-InhA (PDB code: 4BQP). Thus a training set of 15 hybrids with known inhibition potency
was selected to establish a onedescriptor quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model resulting in a linear correlation between the Gibbs free energy (GFE) during the formation of the InhA-TDZ complex and
F-test of The 3D pharmacophore model
generated from the active conformations of TDZs (
F-test of ) served as a virtual screening tool for new analogs from a virtual library (VL). The combination of molecular modeling and in silico screening of (resulted in the identification of novel potent antitubercular agent candidates with favorable pharmacokinetic profiles of which the six best hits predicted inhibitory potencies in the sub nanomolar range