Novel hydroxybenzylamine-deoxyvasicinone hybrids as anticholinesterase therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract A series of novel 2-hydroxybenzylamine-deoxyvasicinone hybrid analogs (8a-8n) have been synthesized and evaluated as inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE), and as inhibitors of amyloid peptide (Aβ1-42) aggregation, for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). These dual acting compounds exhibited good AChE inhibitory activities ranging from 0.34 to 6.35 µM. Analogs 8g and 8n were found to be the most potent AChE inhibitors in the series with IC50 values of 0.38 µM and 0.34 µM, respectively. All the analogs (8a-8n) exhibited weak BuChE inhibitory activities ranging from 14.60 to 21.65 µM. Analogs 8g and 8n exhibited BuChE with IC50 values of 15.38 µM and 14.60 µM, respectively, demonstrating that these analogs were greater than 40-fold more selective for inhibition of AChE over BuChE. Additionally, compounds 8g and 8n were also found to be the best inhibitors of self-induced Aβ1-42 peptide aggregation with IC50 values of 3.91 µM and 3.22 µM, respectively; 8g and 8n also inhibited AChE-induced Aβ1-42 peptide aggregation by 68.7% and 72.6%, respectively. Kinetic analysis and molecular docking studies indicate that analogs 8g and 8n bind to a new allosteric pocket (site B) on AChE. In addition, the observed inhibition of AChE-induced Aβ1-42 peptide aggregation by 8n is likely due to allosteric inhibition of the binding of this peptide at the CAS site on AChE. Overall, these results indicate that 8g and 8n are examples of dual-acting lead compounds for the development of highly effective anti-AD drugs.