The design of potent and selective inhibitors of DPP-4: optimization of ADME properties by amide replacements.

For a series of beta-homophenylalanine based inhibitors of dipeptidyl peptidase IV ADME properties were improved by the incorporation of amide replacements. These efforts led to a novel series of potent and selective inhibitors of DPP-4 that exhibit an attractive pharmacokinetic profile and show excellent efficacy in an animal model of diabetes.

From lead to preclinical candidate: optimization of beta-homophenylalanine based inhibitors of dipeptidyl peptidase IV.

A series of highly potent and selective inhibitors of DPP-4 was optimized for ADMET properties. The effort resulted in the discovery of inhibitor 1g, that exhibits excellent efficacy in an oral glucose tolerance test and an attractive pharmacokinetic profile.

Discovery of beta-homophenylalanine based pyrrolidin-2-ylmethyl amides and sulfonamides as highly potent and selective inhibitors of dipeptidyl peptidase IV.

Modifications of DPP-4 inhibitor 5, that was discovered by structure based design, are described and structure-activity relationships discussed. With analogue 7k one of the most potent non-covalent inhibitors of DPP-4 reported to date (IC(50)=0.38nM) was discovered.

Natural product-derived modulators of cell cycle progression and viral entry by enantioselective oxa Diels-Alder reactions on the solid phase.

The underlying frameworks of natural product classes with multiple biological activities can be regarded as biologically selected and prevalidated starting points in vast chemical structure space in the development of compound collections for chemical biology and medicinal chemistry research. For the synthesis of natural product-derived and -inspired compound collections, the development of enantioselective transformations in a format amenable to library synthesis, e.g.

Synthesis of microcin SF608.

The first total synthesis of aquatic peptide microcin SF608 is described. Coupling of L-Hpla with the dipeptide L-Phe-L-Choi followed by coupling with agmatine and a deprotection step gave microcin SF608. In addition, the levorotatory character of L-Hpla (5) was thoroughly established, and the conformational analysis of L-Choi containing peptides 1 and 8-10 was performed using NMR spectroscopy to examine the cis-trans isomer equilibrium of the L-Phe-L-Choi amide bond.