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Methionine aminopeptidases (MetAPs) have been recognized as drug targets and have been extensively studied for discovery of selective inhibitors. MetAPs are essential enzymes in all living cells. While most prokaryotes contain a single gene, some prokaryotes and all eukaryotes including human have redundancy. Due to the similarity in the active sites of the MetAP enzyme between the pathogens and human limited the success of discovering selective inhibitors. We recently have discovered that MetAPs with small inserts within the catalytic domain to have different susceptibilities against some inhibitors compared to those that do not have. Using this clue we used bioinformatic tools to identify new variants of MetAPs with inserts in pathogenic species. Two new isoforms were identified in Vibrio species with two and three inserts in addition to an isoform without any insert. Multiple sequence alignment suggested that inserts are conserved in several of the Vibrio species. Two of the three inserts are common between two and three insert isoforms. One of the inserts is identified to have "NNKNN" motif that is similar to well-characterized quorum sensing peptide, "NNWNN". Another insert is predicted to have a posttranslational modification site. Three Vibrio proteins were cloned, expressed, purified, enzyme kinetics established and inhibitor screening has been performed. Several of the pyridinylpyrimidine derivatives selectively inhibited MetAPs with inserts compared to those that do not have, including the human enzyme. Crystal structure and molecular modeling studies provide the molecular basis for selective inhibition., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Efficient one-pot five-component synthetic protocols for highly functionalized tetrahydropyridines (THPs) and their biological evaluation have been illustrated. Synthesis of novel functionalized tetrahydropyridines containing differential substitutions at 2,6-positions has been achieved via a modified MCR. Cytotoxic studies of 23 synthesized compounds have been carried out against three different cell lines, namely A-549, HeLa and HepG2, wherein some compounds have displayed appreciable cytotoxicity. Further, investigation of enzyme inhibition by the synthesized THPs has been carried out against four members of M1 family aminopeptidases. Several compounds have selectively inhibited only one member of this enzyme family i.e., human puromycin sensitive aminopeptidase (hPSA). Among the compounds; 4b, 9b, 9e and 10a demonstrated best inhibition against hPSA., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)