Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel inosine 5'-monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH) inhibitors.

This study is based on our attempts to further explore the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of VX-148 (3) in an attempt to identify inosine 5'-mono-phosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH) inhibitors superior to mycophenolic acid. A five-point pharmacophore developed using structurally diverse, known IMPDH inhibitors guided further design of novel analogs of 3. Several conventional as well as novel medicinal chemistry strategies were tried.