Mapping and fitting the peripheral benzodiazepine receptor binding site by carboxamide derivatives. Comparison of different approaches to quantitative ligand-receptor interaction modeling.

The synthetic-computational approach to the study of the binding site of peripheral benzodiazepine receptor (PBR) ligands related to 1-(2-chlorophenyl)-N-methyl-N-(1-methylpropyl)-3-isoquinolinecarboxamide (PK11195, 1) within their receptor (Cappelli et al. J. Med. Chem. 1997, 40, 2910-2921) has been extended. A series of carboxamide derivatives endowed with differently substituted planar aromatic or heteroaromatic systems was designed with the aim of getting further information on the topological requisites of the carbonyl and aromatic moieties for interaction with the PBR binding site. The synthesis of most of these compounds involves Weinreb amidation of the appropriate lactone as the key step. The most potent compound, among the newly synthesized ones, shows a nanomolar PBR affinity similar to that shown by 1 and the presence of a basic N-ethyl-N-benzylaminomethyl group in 3-position of the quinoline nucleus. Thus, it may be considered the first example of a new class of water soluble derivatives of 1. Several computational methods were used to furnish descriptors of the isolated ligands (indirect approaches) able to rationalize the variation in the binding affinity of the enlarged series of compounds. Sound QSAR models are obtained by size and shape descriptors (volume approach) which codify for the short-range contributions to ligand-receptor interactions. Molecular descriptors which explicitly account for the electrostatic contribution to the interaction (CoMFA, CoMSIA, and surface approaches) perform well, but they do not improve the quantitative models. Moreover, useful hints for the identification of the antagonist binding site in the three-dimensional modeling of the receptor (direct approach) were provided by the receptor hypothesis derived by the pharmacophoric approach. The ligand-receptor complexes obtained provided a detailed description of the modalities of the interaction and interesting suggestions for further experiments.