Kinetic and thermodynamic rationale for suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid being a preferential human histone deacetylase 8 inhibitor as compared to the structurally similar ligand, trichostatin a.

Of the different hydroxamate-based histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) has been approved by the FDA for treatment of T-cell lymphoma. Interestingly, a structurally similar inhibitor, Trichostatin A (TSA), which has a higher in vitro inhibitory-potency against HDAC8, reportedly shows a poor efficacy in clinical settings. In order to gain the molecular insight into the above discriminatory feature, we performed transient kinetic and isothermal titration calorimetric studies for the interaction of SAHA and TSA to the recombinant form of human HDAC8. The transient kinetic data revealed that the binding of both the inhibitors to the enzyme showed the biphasic profiles, which represented an initial encounter of enzyme with the inhibitor followed by the isomerization of the transient enzyme-inhibitor complexes. The temperature-dependent transient kinetic studies with the above inhibitors revealed that the bimolecular process is primarily dominated by favorable enthalpic changes, as opposed to the isomerization step; which is solely contributed by entropic changes. The standard binding-enthalpy (ΔH0) of SAHA, deduced from the transient kinetic as well as the isothermal titration calorimetric experiments, was 2–3 kcal/mol higher as compared to TSA. The experimental data presented herein suggests that SAHA serves as a preferential (target-specific/selective) HDAC8 inhibitor as compared to TSA. Arguments are presented that the detailed kinetic and thermodynamic studies may guide in the rational design of HDAC inhibitors as therapeutic agents.