probe design

Unlike the 20 natural amino acids commonly found within living organisms, non-natural amino acids are synthesized through chemical or biosynthetic methods, thereby being endowed with unique chemical properties or biological activities. In drug development, these amino acids can be utilized to design novel pharmaceutical molecules that may exhibit superior pharmacological characteristics, such as increased selectivity, improved pharmacokinetic profiles, or reduced toxicity. In biomedical research, uon-natural amino acids can act as biological markers or probes for investigating biological processes like cell signaling, protein conformation, and protein-protein interactions. In addition, non-natural amino acids can also be used in the field of agriculture to develop new pesticides, plant growth regulators and so on.

Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) is well suited for discovering both drug leads and chemical probes of protein function. 3-dimensionality (3D) diversity is pivotal because the molecular shape is one of the most important factors in molecular recognition by a biomolecule. There is a developing appreciation that 3D fragments could offer opportunities that are not provided by 2D fragments.

MCE 3D Diverse Fragment Library consists of 5,400 non-flat fragment-like molecules (average Fsp3 value 0.58). More than 4,700 fragment compounds contain at least one chiral center in the structure. The key concepts that underlie the library design were 3D shape, structural diversity, reactive functionality and fragment-like. This 3D Diverse Fragment Library brings higher fragment hit optimization and increases the likelihood to find innovative hits in FBDD.

Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD) is a novel and promising approach to drug development. It shows great potential for targeting proteins traditionally considered "undruggable" due to the lack of enzymatic function and absence of binding sites by tagging them for degradation or recruiting natural degradation mechanisms.

Molecular glues are a type of small-molecule degraders that primarily induce novel interactions between E3 ubiquitin ligases and target proteins, forming ternary complexes that lead to protein ubiquitination and subsequent proteasomal degradation. Compared with PROTACs, molecular glues generally have lower molecular weights, higher cell permeability, and better drug-like properties. Additionally, the design of molecular glues is relatively simple, without the requirements for complex linkers and ligand optimization. As a result, molecular glues have gradually emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for various diseases.

Multiple types of molecular glues have been reported previously. Analysis of co-crystal complex structures reveals that CRBN-, VHL-, and DCAF-related molecular glues are more versatile. Therefore, MCE researchers select active molecules related to these targets as probes for artificial intelligence (AI) screening.Subsequently, molecular docking technology was used to verify whether the screened molecules retained the key pharmacophore features. Ultimately, we obtained 800 molecular glue analogs, and these compounds serve as powerful tools for the research of molecular glues.