Refinement and evaluation of a pharmacophore model for flavone derivatives binding to the benzodiazepine site of the GABA(A) receptor

Summary, in English

To further develop and evaluate a pharmacophore model previously proposed by Cook and co-workers (Drug Des. Discovery 1995,12,193-248) for ligands binding to the benzodiazepine site of the GABA(A) receptor, 40 new flavone derivatives have been synthesized and their affinities for the benzodiazepine site have been determined. Two new regions of steric repulsive interactions between ligand and receptor have been characterized, and the receptor region in the vicinity of 6- and 8'-substituents has been mapped out. 2'-Hydroxy substitution is shown to give a significant increase in affinity, which is interpreted in terms of a novel hydrogen bond interaction with the previously proposed hydrogen bond-accepting site A2. On the basis of the results of these studies and the refined pharmacophore model, 5'-bromo-2'-hydroxy-6-methylflavone, the highest affinity flavone derivative reported so far (K-i = 0.9 nM), was successfully designed. A comparison of the pharmacophore model with a recently proposed alternative model (Marder; et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem., 2001, 9, 323-335) has been made.

• Author: Pia Kahnberg; Erik Lager; Celia Rosenberg; Jette Schougaard; Linda Camet; Olov Sterner; Elisabet Ostergaard Nielsen; Mogens Nielsen; Tommy Liljefors
• Department/s: Centre for Analysis and Synthesis
• Publishing year: 2002
• Language: English
• Pages: 4188-4201
• Publication/Series: Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 19
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: The American Chemical Society (ACS)
• Topic: Medicinal Chemistry
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1520-4804