Exploring novel antitubercular agents: Innovative design of 2,3-diaryl-quinoxalines targeting DprE1 for effective tuberculosis treatment

The rising instances of drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains pose a significant global health challenge. Conventional tuberculosis (TB) treatments, which typically involve multiple antibiotics, face hurdles like drug resistance, reduced effectiveness, and heightened toxicity. Consequently, there is a pressing need for innovative anti-TB agents with new modes of action. Decaprenyl-phosphoryl-β-d-ribose 2′-epimerase 1(DprE1), a crucial enzyme in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, plays a vital role in cell wall biosynthesis – a critical aspect for the bacterium’s survival. Building on the success of diarylquinolines like bedaquiline, targeting DprE1 presents a promising avenue for developing anti-TB drugs, especially against drug-resistant strains. Our research focused on discovering novel DprE1 inhibitors using a ligand-based drug design strategy, starting with the established non-covalent inhibitor Ty38c. We assembled a library of 16 molecules, modifying them based on factors like drug-like properties, chemical accessibility, and synthetic feasibility. Molecular docking analyses of this library identified three molecules with binding affinities comparable to Ty38c. Among these, KS_QD_05 and KS_QD_04 are promising candidates, which were further validated through molecular dynamics simulation studies where root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) values of all three complexes reached a plateau, measuring around 0.3 nm, indicating that the apoprotein and all complexes stabilized during the simulation. The ligands KS_QD_04 and KS_QD_05 displayed significantly stable deviation. KS_QD_05 reached about 0.1 nm equilibrium value. However, the ligand KS_QD_04 reached an RMSD value of 0.17 nm and showed distress at 70 nm. KS_QD_04 and KS_QD_05 showed an average value of 1-3 H-bond interaction and regarding the RMSF values, both the compounds showed fluctuations less than 0.5 nm in the case of Mtb. DprE1 enzyme. This indicates the potential of both compounds to become lead compounds in the pursuit of DprE1 inhibitors for TB treatment.