Exploiting Enzyme Plasticity in Virtual Screening: High Efficiency Inhibitors of Glutamate Racemase.
Glutamate racemase is an attractive antimicrobial drug target. Virtual screening using a transition-state conformation of the enzyme resulted in the discovery of several μM competitive inhibitors, dissimilar from current amino acid-like inhibitors, providing novel scaffolds for drug discovery. The most effective of these competitive inhibitors possesses a very high ligand efficiency value of -0.6 kcal/mol/heavy atom, and is effective against three distinct glutamate racemases representing two species of Bacillus. The benefits of employing the transition-state conformation of the receptor in virtual screening are discussed.
Whalen
Katie L
KL
Department of Biochemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801.
Pankow
Katherine L
KL
Blanke
Steven R
SR
Spies
M Ashley
MA