Design of new potent HTLV-1 protease inhibitors: in silico study

HTLV-1 and HIV-1 are two major causes for severe T-cell leukemia disease and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). HTLV-1 protease, a member of aspartic acid protease family, plays important roles in maturation during virus replication cycle. The impairment of these proteases results in uninfectious HTLV-1virions.Similar to HIV-1protease deliberate mutations that confer drug resistance on HTLV-1 are frequently seen in this protease. Therefore, inhibition of HTLV-1 protease activity is expected to disrupt HTLV-1’s ability to replicate and infect additional cells. In this study, we initially designed fifteen inhibitory compounds based on the conformations of a class of HIV-1 aspartyl protease inhibitors, sulfonamid-peptoid. Five compounds were chosen based on the goodness of their Drug-Likeness scoreusing “Lipinsk’s rule of five”. Here, using protein-ligand docking approach we compared the inhibitory constants of these compounds to those available in literatures and observed significantly higher inhibition for two compounds, SP-4 and SP-5. Our data suggest that the addition of two cyclic hydrocarbons to both ends of sulfonamide peptoids leads to the formation of new hydrophobic interactions due to the semi-circular form of these compounds, connecting the first chain of protease to the two ends of tested ligands via Hydrophobic interactions. We conclude that hydrophobic force plays an important role in suppressing protease activity especially for HTLV-1 protease, which in turn prevents the virus maturity. Therefore, designing and development of new ligands based on aromatic hydrocarbons in both ends of inhibitors is very promising for efficient treatment.