Papers by Marcelo Castilho
2D QSAR studies on thyroid hormone receptor ligands
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, 2007
2D QSAR studies were carried out for a series of 55 ligands for the Thyroid receptors, TRalpha an... more 2D QSAR studies were carried out for a series of 55 ligands for the Thyroid receptors, TRalpha and TRbeta. Significant cross-validated correlation coefficients (q(2)=0.781 (TRalpha) and 0.693 (TRbeta)) were obtained. The models' predictive abilities were proved more valuable than the classical 2D-QSAR, and were further investigated by means of an external test set of 13 compounds. The predicted values are in good agreement with experimental values, suggesting that the models could be useful in the design of novel, more potent TR ligands. Contribution map analysis identified a number of positions that are promising for the development of receptor isoform specific ligands.
Quimica Nova, 2009
Recebido em 9/12/08; aceito em 14/4/09; publicado na web em 22/9/09 QSAR 3D STUDIES OF A SERIES O... more Recebido em 9/12/08; aceito em 14/4/09; publicado na web em 22/9/09 QSAR 3D STUDIES OF A SERIES OF HUMAN BUTYRYLCHOLINESTERASE INHIBITORS. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is considered the main cause of cognitive decline in adults. The available therapies for AD treatment seek to maintain the activity of cholinergic system through the inhibition of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. However, butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) can be considered an alternative target for AD treatment. Aiming at developing new BuChE inhibitors, robust QSAR 3D models with high predictive power were developed. The best model presents a good fit (r 2 =0.82, q 2 =0.76, with two PCs) and high predictive power (r 2 predict =0.88). Analysis of regression vector shows that steric properties have considerable importance to the inhibition of the BuChE.

In vitro screening and chemometrics analysis on a series of azole derivatives with fungicide activity against moniliophthora perniciosa
Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins Including Tropical Diseases, 2010
Moniliophthora perniciosa, the causal agent of witches' broom disease in Theobroma cacao, signifi... more Moniliophthora perniciosa, the causal agent of witches' broom disease in Theobroma cacao, significantly decreased cacao production, especially in Bahia State, the largest cocoa producing of the American continent. Control programs developed so far have low efficiency. Azole derivatives are active both in vitro and in loco against M. perniciosa, however there is no comprehensive study on the activity of azoles against this phytopatogen. Standardized in vitro biological data were employed to develop supervised and unsupervised chemometric models that highlight physicochemical and structural features that are crucial for azole's fungicidal activity against M. perniciosa. Thus, PCA and SIMCA models suggest that electronegativity (BEHe3) and dipolar moment (JGI4), as well as H-bonding to M. pernciosa's lanosterol 14α-desmethylase active site and lack of Cl atoms 6 to 8 bonds from the azole's nitrogen atoms play a major role to azoles' fungicide activity.

Journal of Computer-aided Molecular Design, 2003
Drug design strategies based on Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (CoMFA) have been used to pr... more Drug design strategies based on Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (CoMFA) have been used to predict the activity of new compounds. The major advantage of this approach is that it permits the analysis of a large number of quantitative descriptors and uses chemometric methods such as partial least squares (PLS) to correlate changes in bioactivity with changes in chemical structure. Because it is often difficult to rationalize all variables affecting the binding affinity of compounds using CoMFA solely, the program GRID was used to describe ligands in terms of their molecular interaction fields, MIFs. The program VolSurf that is able to compress the relevant information present in 3D maps into a few descriptors can treat these GRID fields. The binding affinities of a new set of compounds consisting of 13 coumarins, for one of which the three-dimensional ligand-enzyme bound structure is known, were studied. A final model based on the mentioned programs was independently validated by synthesizing and testing new coumarin derivatives. By relying on our knowledge of the real physical data (i.e., combining crystallographic and binding affinity results), it is also shown that ligand-based design agrees with structure-based design. The compound with the highest binding affinity was the coumarin chalepin, isolated from Rutaceae species, with an IC50 value of 55.5 μM towards the enzyme glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gGAPDH) from glycosomes of the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas' disease. The proposed models from GRID MIFs have revealed the importance of lipophilic interactions in modulating the inhibition, but without excluding the dependence on stereo-electronic properties as found from CoMFA fields.
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, 2004
This article describes the synthesis and inhibitory activities of a series of new 3-piperonylcoum... more This article describes the synthesis and inhibitory activities of a series of new 3-piperonylcoumarins, designed as inhibitors of glycosomal glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gGAPDH) from Trypanosoma cruzi. The design was based on the structures of previously identified natural products hits. The most active synthesized derivatives contain heterocyclic rings at position 6. SAR studies, performed by electronic indices methodology (EIM), clustered the molecules in different groups due to the chemical substitutions regarding the biological activity. Molecular modeling studies by docking suggested a different binding mode for the most active derivatives, when compared to natural hit chalepin. Moreover, the coumarin ring seems to act only as a spacer group.
Febs Letters, 2002
The structure of the glycosomal glyceraldehyde-3phosphate dehydrogenase (gGAPDH) from Trypanosoma... more The structure of the glycosomal glyceraldehyde-3phosphate dehydrogenase (gGAPDH) from Trypanosoma cruzi complexed with chalepin, a natural product from Pilocarpus spicatus, has been determined by X-ray crystallography to 1.95 A î resolution. The structure is in the apo form without cofactors in the subunits of the tetrameric gGAPDH in the asymmetric unit. Unequivocal density corresponding to the inhibitor was clearly identified in one monomer. The final refined model of the complex shows extensive conformational changes when compared with the native structure. The mode of binding of chalepin to gGAPDH and its implications for inhibitor design are discussed. ß

Journal of Computer-aided Molecular Design, 2003
Drug design strategies based on Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (CoMFA) have been used to pr... more Drug design strategies based on Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (CoMFA) have been used to predict the activity of new compounds. The major advantage of this approach is that it permits the analysis of a large number of quantitative descriptors and uses chemometric methods such as partial least squares (PLS) to correlate changes in bioactivity with changes in chemical structure. Because it is often difficult to rationalize all variables affecting the binding affinity of compounds using CoMFA solely, the program GRID was used to describe ligands in terms of their molecular interaction fields, MIFs. The program VolSurf that is able to compress the relevant information present in 3D maps into a few descriptors can treat these GRID fields. The binding affinities of a new set of compounds consisting of 13 coumarins, for one of which the three-dimensional ligand-enzyme bound structure is known, were studied. A final model based on the mentioned programs was independently validated by synthesizing and testing new coumarin derivatives. By relying on our knowledge of the real physical data (i.e., combining crystallographic and binding affinity results), it is also shown that ligand-based design agrees with structure-based design. The compound with the highest binding affinity was the coumarin chalepin, isolated from Rutaceae species, with an IC 50 value of 55.5 µM towards the enzyme glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gGAPDH) from glycosomes of the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas' disease. The proposed models from GRID MIFs have revealed the importance of lipophilic interactions in modulating the inhibition, but without excluding the dependence on stereo-electronic properties as found from CoMFA fields.

Molecular Diversity, 2008
Worldwide, tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death among curable infectious diseases. Mul... more Worldwide, tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death among curable infectious diseases. Multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an emerging problem of great importance to public health, and there is an urgent need for new anti-TB drugs. In the present work, classical 2D quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSAR) and hologram QSAR (HQSAR) studies were performed on a training set of 91 isoniazid derivatives. Significant statistical models (classical QSAR, q 2 = 0.68 and r 2 = 0.72; HQSAR, q 2 = 0.63 and r 2 = 0.86) were obtained, indicating their consistency for untested compounds. The models were then used to evaluate an external test set containing 24 compounds which were not included in the training set, and the predicted values were in good agreement with the experimental results (HQSAR, \({r^{2}_{pred} = 0.87}\) ; classical QSAR, \({r^{2}_{pred} = 0.75}\) ).
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Papers by Marcelo Castilho