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Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2004

 

Contents

 

Supramolecular and QSAR Approaches for Extension of the High-throughput Screening Methodologies

Guest Editor: Grzegorz Bazylak

 

Virtual Screening Methods that Complement HTS Pp.259-269

Florence L. Stahura and Jurgen Bajorath

[Abstract]

 

Computational Methods for the Identification and Optimisation of High Quality Leads Pp.271-280

Bernard Pirard

[Abstract]

 

High-throughput Evaluation of Lipophilicity and Acidity by New Gradient HPLC Methods Pp.281-289

Michal Jan Markuszewski, Pawel Wiczling and Roman Kaliszan

[Abstract]

 

Stationary Phases with Special Structural Properties for High-throughput Separation Techniques: Preparation, Characterization and Applications Pp.291-312

Boguslaw Buszewski and Tomasz Welerowicz

[Abstract]

 

Research Papers

 

Prediction of the Affinity of the Newly Synthesised Azapirone Derivatives for 5-HT1A Receptors Based on Artificial Neural Network Analysis of Chromatographic Retention Data and Calculation Chemistry Parameters Pp.313-325

Antoni Nasal, Adam Bucinski, Tomasz Baczek and Anna Wojdelko

[Abstract]

 

Artificial Neural Networks for Prediction of Antibacterial Activity in Series of Imidazole Derivatives Pp.327-336

Adam Bucinski, Michal Jan Markuszewski, Wlodzimierz Wiktorowicz, Jerzy Krysinski and Roman Kaliszan

[Abstract]

 

Electronic Nose Screening of Limonene Release from Multicomponent Essential Oils Encapsulated in Pectin Gels Pp.337-344

Maria Eugenia Monge, Donatella Bulone, Daniela Giacomazza, R. Martin Negri and Delia L. Bernik

[Abstract]

 

Potentiometric quasi-Array Employing Calixarene Derivatives for the Highthroughput Similarity/Diversity Screening of beta-Adrenergic and beta- Blocking Chiral Drugs by HPLC Pp.345-359

Grzegorz Bazylak, Luc J. Nagels and Herman J. Geise

[Abstract]

 

Boronic Esters as Ionophores for Potentiometric Discrimination of the Cis- Trans Isomeric Dicarboxylic Acids Pp.361-366

Jerzy Radecki, Tomasz Piotrowski, Bert Metten, Mario Smet, Ahmed Hameurlaine and Wim Dehaen

[Abstract]

 

Fabrication of PVC Based Membrane Using Nickel Porphyrazine as Ionophore in the Screening of Thiocyanate Ion in Aqueous and Real Samples Pp.367-374

Azad Kumar, Rajendra Prasad and Vinod K. Gupta

[Abstract]

 

Potentiometric Discrimination of Neutral Forms of Nitrophenol Isomers by Liquid Membrane Electrodes Incorporated with Corroles Pp.375-381

Jerzy Radecki, Iwona Stenka, Eddy Dolusic, Wim Dehaen and Janez Plavec

[Abstract]

 

Effect of Stationary Phase Structure on Retention and Selectivity Tuning in the High-throughput Separation of Tocopherol Isomers by HPLC Pp.383-391

Boguslaw Buszewskia, Katarzyna Krupczynska and Grzegorz Bazylak

[Abstract]

 

Abstracts

 

[Back to top] Virtual Screening Methods that Complement HTS

Florence L. Stahura and Jurgen Bajorath

 

In this review, we discuss a number of computational methods that have been developed or adapted for molecule classification and virtual screening (VS) of compound databases. In particular, we focus on approaches that are complementary to high-throughput screening (HTS). The discussion is limited to VS methods that operate at the small molecular level, which is often called ligand-based VS (LBVS), and does not take into account docking algorithms or other structure-based screening tools. We describe areas that greatly benefit from combining virtual and biological screening and discuss computational methods that are most suitable to contribute to the integration of screening technologies. Relevant approaches range from established methods such as clustering or similarity searching to techniques that have only recently been introduced for LBVS applications such as statistical methods or support vector machines. Finally, we discuss a number of representative applications at the interface between VS and HTS.

 

[Back to top] Computational Methods for the Identification and Optimisation of High Quality Leads

Bernard Pirard

 

Lead identification and optimisation have evolved into multidimensional, multidisciplinary and information-driven processes. Herein, we review the contribution of computational chemistry to these processes. We focus on computational approaches developed for modelling biopharmaceutical properties, including in vitro activity, selectivity, absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity. Whenever possible, successful applications are mentioned.

 

[Back to top] High-throughput Evaluation of Lipophilicity and Acidity by New Gradient HPLC Methods

Michal Jan Markuszewski, Pawel Wiczling and Roman Kaliszan

 

There is a need for fast testing of drug candidates for properties of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics importance, in particular lipophilicity and acidity. These two parameters can conveniently be estimated by gradient reversed-phase HPLC. Appropriate conventional organic solvent gradient and the new pH gradient HPLC procedures are presented. The chromatographic parameter of lipophilicity, log kw, can be determined from two organic solvent gradient runs instead of 6-8 runs necessary in the standard isocratic (polycratic) approach.

 

The newly introduced pH gradient reversed-phase HPLC consists in a programmed increase during the chromatographic run of the eluting power of the mobile phase with regards to ionizable analytes. The eluting strength of the mobile phase increases due to its increasing (in case of acidic analytes) or decreasing (basic analytes) pH, whereas the content of organic modifier remains constant. It has been theoretically and experimentally demonstrated that the pKa and log kw values can be evaluated based on retention data from a pH gradient run, combined with appropriate data from two organic solvent gradient runs. The gradient HPLC-derived log kw parameters correlate well with analogous parameters determined isocratically as well as with reference lipophilicity parameter log P (logarithm of n-octanol/water partition coefficient). Also, the HPLC-derived pKa parameters correlate to the literature pKa values (  pKa ), conventionally determined by titrations in water. The approach described allows rapid and high-throughput assessment of log kw and pKa for large series of drugs candidates, also when the analytes are available in a form of mixture, e.g. produced by combinatorial synthesis.

 

[Back to top] Stationary Phases with Special Structural Properties for High-throughput Separation Techniques: Preparation, Characterization and Applications

Boguslaw Buszewski and Tomasz Welerowicz

 

Stationary phases with specific structural properties for high-throughput liquid chromatographic (LC) techniques are described. Special attention was paid to phases with special structural properties, mainly containing internal functional group (e.g. amide). Such materials are generally called “embedded phases”. There are phases created in amidation process of aminopropylated silica gel, especially phases based on biological compounds, like phospholipids and cholesterol, which are called immobilized artificial membranes (IAM’s). The synthesis and applications of polar embedded amide LC stationary phases were also reviewed. Methods of characterization of synthesized packing materials were presented, with general focusing on spectroscopic measurements like (13C and 29Si CP/MAS NMR and FT-IR), elemental and thermal analysis as well as chromatographic quantitative structure-retention relationships (QSRR) and extended chemometric tests. The potential applications of various dedicated stationary phases in a high-throughput LC screening procedures were also presented.

 

[Back to top] Prediction of the Affinity of the Newly Synthesised Azapirone Derivatives for 5-HT1A Receptors Based on Artificial Neural Network Analysis of Chromatographic Retention Data and Calculation Chemistry Parameters

Antoni Nasal, Adam Bucinski, Tomasz Baczek and Anna Wojdelko

 

The performance of artificial neural network (ANN) in predicting the affinity of a series of 65 new azapirone derivatives for rat brain serotonin 5-HT1A receptors based on high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) retention data and on non-empirical structural parameters of the compounds’ was studied. Affinity of the agents for rat brain 5-HT1A receptors were assessed in vitro and expressed as inhibitor constant values, Ki. The retention parameters determined in 14 HPLC systems along with compounds’ structural descriptors from calculation chemistry were considered in ANN analysis. Supervised method of ANN learning with back-propagation strategy was used in ANN calculations. Two models of ANN of similar architecture were designed: the first one for the data based on chromatographic retention data and the second based on structural parameters of the agents. Each ANN model was trained with the data of training set. It was next used to classify the agents from the testing set into two groups: active (Ki ≤ 50 nM) and inactive compounds (Ki ≥ 50 nM). A high prediction performance of both ANN models considered as regards the affinity of new azapirone derivatives for the serotonin 5-HT1A receptors was demonstrated. However, the percent of correctly classified compounds was higher in the case of the ANN processing of the non-empirical structural descriptors of azapirone derivatives.

 

Since the ANN analysis of the retention data and of the structural parameters originating from calculation chemistry allows to segregate drug candidates according to their pharmacological properties that, in consequence, may be of help to limit the number of biological assays in the search for new drugs.

 

[Back to top] Artificial Neural Networks for Prediction of Antibacterial Activity in Series of Imidazole Derivatives

Adam Bucinski, Michal Jan Markuszewski, Wlodzimierz Wiktorowicz, Jerzy Krysinski and Roman Kaliszan

 

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been applied for the quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR) studies of antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, Serratia marcescens, Proteus vulgaris, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa of a large series of new imidazole derivatives. Antibacterial activity against individual bacteria, expressed as logarithm of reciprocal of the minimal inhibitory concentrations, log 1/MIC, has been related to a number of physicochemical and structural parameters of the imidazole derivatives investigated. Molecular descriptors of agents were obtained by quantum-chemical calculations combined with molecular modelling and from respective structure fragment reference data (e.g., log P). A high correlation resulted between the predicted from ANN model antibacterial activity, log 1/MICANN, and that from biological experiments, log 1/MICexp, both for the data used in learning and in the testing sets of imidazoles. Correlation coefficient, R, depending on the type of bacteria and structural subset of analysed imidazole compounds, varies from 0.875 to 0.969. The applicability of ANNs has been demonstrated for the prediction of pharmacological potency of new imidazole derivatives based on their structural descriptors generated exclusively by calculation chemistry.

 

[Back to top] Electronic Nose Screening of Limonene Release from Multicomponent Essential Oils Encapsulated in Pectin Gels

Maria Eugenia Monge, Donatella Bulone, Daniela Giacomazza, R. Martin Negri and Delia L. Bernik

 

Multicomponent essential oils Tagetes Minuta and Poleo as well as pure limonene were encapsulated in Tween doped-high methoxylated pectin gels. Optical microscopy reveals that the obtained gels containing limonene consisted in a highly heterogeneous oil-in-water emulsion stabilised by the gelled medium. The influence of limonene encapsulation in pectin gelation kinetics and the gel structural properties were followed by dynamic rheological measurements. An electronic nose device developed in our laboratory was used to follow the flavour release of the three systems in order to discriminate the samples according to the main components released to the headspace. PCA and Neural Network Analysis allowed us to discriminate Tagetes Minuta from Poleo due to the difference in their limonene content. It is remarkable that the fingerprints of encapsulated complex mixtures differ from those obtained for the non-encapsulated oils, showing a preferential release of some components. In the case of limonene, the effect of the encapsulated concentration on the detected odour was also studied.

 

[Back to top] Potentiometric quasi-Array Employing Calixarene Derivatives for the Highthroughput Similarity/Diversity Screening of beta-Adrenergic and beta- Blocking Chiral Drugs by HPLC

Grzegorz Bazylak, Luc J. Nagels and Herman J. Geise

 

Performance of potentiometric quasi-array detection system consisted with the seven poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) based liquid membrane electrodes in the cation-exchange HPLC using acetonitrile - 40 mM phosphoric acid (15 : 85, v/v, pH* 2.35) for assessing of molecular similarity/diversity in a mini-library of beta-adrenergic and beta-blocking chiral drugs was presented. Macrocyclic compounds differing in stability of their conformers as well as in a size, steric hindrance and polarity of its internal cavities, comprising a series of five calix[6]arene derivatives completed with one modified calix[4]resorcinarene, were used as neutral ionophores to compose mentioned set of PVC-based electrodes. The output potentiometric responses were registered in the linear supernerstian range of calibration graph of each electrode, i.e. for a constant injected concentration 2.0 x 10-4 M of investigated drugs, which is related to the amount frequently used at in vitro studies on pharmacological effects of these drugs. The impact of symmetry oriented supramolecular interactions on the responses of developed electrodes were characterised with proposed series of the highly significant quantitative structure-potentiometric response relationships (QSPRRs) combining both three-dimensional (3D) molecular descriptors of analysed drugs as well as lipophilicity and volume polarizability of calixarene-type ionophores. The principal components analysis (PCA) and unweighted hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) were used as the pattern recognition techniques into collected potentiometric database for extraction of the useful information on the molecular and pharmacological similarity/diversity of analysed drugs, thus a high-throughput and consistent identification of therapeutically relevant agonists of beta2- and beta3-adrenoceptors and antagonists of beta1-adrenoceptor was especially achieved. This evidence supports also a hypothesis formulated by results of homology modelling on the subtle significance of an unrecognised supramolecular insertion processes of the chiral drug molecule into the flexible hydrophobic pocket(s) formed by seven helical transmembrane moving domains of beta-adrenoceptors on their final activation, sequestration, down-regulation or blockade.

 

[Back to top] Boronic Esters as Ionophores for Potentiometric Discrimination of the Cis- Trans Isomeric Dicarboxylic Acids

Jerzy Radecki, Tomasz Piotrowski, Bert Metten, Mario Smet, Ahmed Hameurlaine and Wim Dehaen

 

Boronic esters incorporated into a poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC)-supported liquid membrane electrodes have displayed an anionic ionophore properties enabling their use in the potentiometric high-throughput screening procedures. These compounds belong to the class of ligands in which the anion recognition process can be explained on the concept of Lewis type acid-base interactions. Membranes containing boronic esters showed fairly good sensitivity for maleate (cis-isomer) in comparison to fumarate anions (trans-isomer). The potentiometric selectivity coefficients of proposed electrodes proved that common anions did not interfered with the maleate anion determination. The influence of structure of the three boronic esters ionophores on generation of potentiometric signal by developed liquid membrane electrodes was shortly discussed.

 

[Back to top] Fabrication of PVC Based Membrane Using Nickel Porphyrazine as Ionophore in the Screening of Thiocyanate Ion in Aqueous and Real Samples

Azad Kumar, Rajendra Prasad and Vinod K. Gupta

 

The [Ni{(TAP)(SBn)8}] complex (I), i.e. ({2,3,7,8,12,13,17,18-octakis(benzylthio)-5,10,15,20- tetraazaporphyrin})nickel(II), has been explored as an ionophore for fabrication of the PVC based membrane electrodes used in the screening of thiocyanate anion (SCN-). The membrane having [Ni{(TAP)(SBn)8}] complex (I) as an electroactive material and dioctylphthalate (DOP) as plasticizer in the PVC matrix with the percentage ratio 5 : 158 : 200 (I : DOP : PVC, % w/w) exhibited a linear response in the concentration range 7.0 × 10-6 - 1.0 × 10-1 M of SCN- with a sub-Nernstian slope 32.5 ± 0.2 mV/decade of activity and a fast response time of 10 ± 2 s. The sensor works well in the pH range 3.0 - 9.5 and could be satisfactorily used in presence of 50 % (v/v) methanol, ethanol and acetone, and is selective for SCN- over a large number of anions with slight interference from iodide (I-) and azide (N3-) if present at a level ≥ 1.0 × 10-5 M. Described electrode works well over a period of six months. The sensor can be successfully applied for the screening of SCN- in both aqueous and real samples and also as indicator electrodes in precipitation titrations.

 

[Back to top] Potentiometric Discrimination of Neutral Forms of Nitrophenol Isomers by Liquid Membrane Electrodes Incorporated with Corroles

Jerzy Radecki, Iwona Stenka, Eddy Dolusic, Wim Dehaen and Janez Plavec

 

The results of studies on the use of corrole derivatives as a host ligand in the PVC liquid membrane electrodes and their ability for the potentiometric high-throughput discrimination of nitrophenol guests have been presented. The significance of parameters which govern the mechanism of generation of potentiometric signals such as the attachment of substituents in the corrole structure, acidity and lipophilicity of the guests, and pH of the aqueous solutions has been discussed in details. Supramolecular recognition processes between corroles and para-nitrophenol molecules have been confirmed by independent NMR measurements.

 

[Back to top] Effect of Stationary Phase Structure on Retention and Selectivity Tuning in the High-throughput Separation of Tocopherol Isomers by HPLC

Boguslaw Buszewski, Katarzyna Krupczynska and Grzegorz Bazylak

 

Four stationary phases containing different groups such as: C18, C30, alkylamide, and cholesterolic, were presented for simultaneous HPLC analysis of structural isomers of tocopherol. Especially, the influence of stationary phase structure and properties on tuning of the highly selective HPLC separation of β- and γ- tocopherol pair demonstrating, respectively, para- and ortho- arrangement of methyl substituents on the 6- chromanol ring, has been elucidated. It was pointed out that selectivity of each stationary phase has been a result of modulation in the mass transfer and set of unspecific interactions in the tertiary system comprising analyte Û stationary phase Û mobile phase. Differences in observed retention and specific selectivity of tocopherols together with the stationary phase structure investigations indicated that a spatial organization changing of chemically bonded ligands as predominantly a solvation consequence. Additional molecular modeling studies preliminary explained some of these complicated supramolecular phenomena which caused that cholesterolic stationary phase offered beneficial performance in screening of tocopherols by HPLC and biomimetic studies of not completely recognized interactions of tocopherol isomers and biological membranes.