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A homology model of the active site region of tripeptidyl peptidase II (TPP II) was constructed based on the crystal structures of four subtilisin-like templates. The resulting model was subsequently validated by judging expectations of the model versus observed activities for a broad set of prepared TPP II inhibitors. The structure-activity relationships observed for the prepared TPP II inhibitors correlated nicely with the structural details of the TPP II active site model, supporting the validity of this model and its usefulness for structure-based drug design and pharmacophore searching experiments.

There are several indications that a given compound or a set of related compounds can bind in different modes to a specific binding site of a protein. This is especially evident from X-ray crystallographic structures of ligand-protein complexes. The availability of multiple binding modes of a ligand in a binding site may present an advantage in drug design when simultaneously optimizing several criteria. In the case of the design of anti-HIV compounds we observed that the more active compounds that are also resilient against mutation of the non-nucleoside binding site of HIV1-reverse transcriptase make use of more binding modes than the less active and resilient compounds.

A synthesis program directed toward improving the stability of imidoyl thiourea based non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) led to the discovery of diaryltriazines (DATAs), a new class of potent NNRTIs. The synthesis and anti-HIV structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies of a series of DATA derivatives are described.