Full Text Available

Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.

Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase

Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Riley, Darren Lyall
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of Pretoria 2020
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1867613703705198592
access_status_str Open Access
author2 Riley, Darren Lyall
author_browse Riley, Darren Lyall
author_facet Riley, Darren Lyall
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv © 2019 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.
description Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020.
format Thesis
id oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/75590
institution University of Pretoria (South Africa)
language English
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:40:22.099Z
license_str Other — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
publishDate 2020
publishDateRange 2020
publishDateSort 2020
publisher University of Pretoria
publisherStr University of Pretoria
record_format dspace
source_str UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
spelling oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/75590 Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase Riley, Darren Lyall carljohanvdw@gmail.com Stander, Andre Panayides, Jenny-Lee Van der Westhuizen, Carl Johan Chemistry UCTD Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease which is a significant socio-economic problem. The number of patients affected by the disease is increasing at an alarming rate, largely due to expanding population sizes and longer life expectancy. While significant amounts of research into AD have been conducted the cause and pathogenesis of the disease are not well understood, with several hypotheses being noted in literature. To date, four drugs have been approved by the FDA, but these compounds only provide symptomatic relief. This study describes the uses of computer-aided drug discovery (CADD) techniques to identify novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase (AChE), a target for AD. High throughput virtual screening (HTVS) was employed to predict potential inhibitors of AChE – an approach which, due to the associated difficulties of modelling the enzyme has to date not been reported to be successful in literature. Validation of enrichment was performed with the “Directory of Useful Decoys, enhanced” DUD-E dataset, showing that an ensemble of binding pocket conformations is critical when a diverse set of ligands are being screened. HTVS of a library of 20 000 compounds was performed. Cross-validation of the model was conducted by in vitro screening of 720 compounds, which led to 25 hits being identified with IC50 values of less than 50 μM. The majority of these hits belonged to two scaffolds: 1-ethyl-3-methoxy-3-methylpyrrolidine and 1H-pyrrolo[3,2-c]pyridin-6-amine, the latter being found through serendipity. Both scaffolds were noted to be promising compounds for further optimisation. Computational analysis of the active hits were performed to gain a deeper understanding of the binding pose to AChE. As various possible binding poses were suggested from molecular docking, molecular dynamic (MD) simulations were employed to validate the poses. In the case of the most active compounds identified, a critical, stable water bridge formed deep within the pocket. This, in part, explains the lack of activity for subsets of compounds that are not able to form this critical water bridge. The pKa analysis of AChE inhibitors showed a preference for pKa values higher than physiological pH leading to the ligands being cations and allowing the inhibitor to better mimic the substrate of AChE. Implications of using pKa as a guideline to improve potency and selectivity for AChE inhibitors are discussed. Further development of the docking protocol was performed with the use of a popular machine learning approach, Random Forest (RF). The approach is largely based on SIEVE-Score which takes the interaction energies between the ligand and residues in the pocket into account. By employing an ensemble of receptor conformations, significant enrichment over previous studies was obtained. Finally, additional secondary projects are reported which cover the computational analysis of compounds synthesised within the research group which inhibit either AChE or β-secretase (BACE1). Analysis of the interactions that inhibitors make with residues in the binding pocket allowed for an improved understanding of the system for future lead-optimisation studies. NRF Chemistry PhD Unrestricted 2020-08-06T07:40:55Z 2020-08-06T07:40:55Z 2020-10-02 2020 Thesis Van der Westhuizen, CJ 2020, Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase, PhD Thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/75590> S2020 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/75590 en © 2019 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria
spellingShingle Chemistry
UCTD
Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase
title Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase
title_full Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase
title_fullStr Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase
title_full_unstemmed Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase
title_short Combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase
title_sort combining in silico and in vitro approaches to discover novel inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase
topic Chemistry
UCTD
url http://hdl.handle.net/2263/75590