Highly Stable,Amide‐Bridged Autoinducing Peptide Analogues that Strongly Inhibit the AgrC Quorum Sensing Receptor in Staphylococcus aureus

Blocking quorum sensing (QS) pathways has attracted considerable interest as an approach to suppress virulence in bacterial pathogens. Toward this goal, we recently developed analogues of a native autoinducing peptide (AIP‐III) signal that can inhibit AgrC‐type QS receptors and attenuate virulence phenotypes in Staphylococcus aureus. Application of these compounds is limited, however, as they contain hydrolytically unstable thioester linkages and have only low aqueous solubilities. Herein, we report amide‐linked AIP analogues with greatly enhanced hydrolytic stabilities and solubilities relative to our prior analogues, whilst maintaining strong potencies as AgrC receptor inhibitors in S. aureus. These compounds represent powerful tools for the study of QS.     

Highly Stable,Amide‐Bridged Autoinducing Peptide Analogues that Strongly Inhibit the AgrC Quorum Sensing Receptor in Staphylococcus aureus

Blocking quorum sensing (QS) pathways has attracted considerable interest as an approach to suppress virulence in bacterial pathogens. Toward this goal, we recently developed analogues of a native autoinducing peptide (AIP‐III) signal that can inhibit AgrC‐type QS receptors and attenuate virulence phenotypes in Staphylococcus aureus. Application of these compounds is limited, however, as they contain hydrolytically unstable thioester linkages and have only low aqueous solubilities. Herein, we report amide‐linked AIP analogues with greatly enhanced hydrolytic stabilities and solubilities relative to our prior analogues, whilst maintaining strong potencies as AgrC receptor inhibitors in S. aureus. These compounds represent powerful tools for the study of QS.     

Microwave-assisted solid-phase aza-peptide synthesis: aza scan of a PKB/Akt inhibitor using aza-arginine and aza-proline precursors

Aza-peptides are peptidomimetics in which one or more of the α-carbons, bearing the side-chain residues, has been replaced by a nitrogen. These peptidomimetics have been shown to be promising for the generation of drug leads and for structure-activity relationship studies. Aza-scan is the systematic replacement of amino acid residues in a given peptide with their aza counterparts. We report here an aza-scan of a potent, peptide-based PKB/Akt inhibitor, PTR6154. Procedures for microwave-assisted, Fmoc/t-Bu chemistry, solid-phase aza-peptide synthesis were developed which significantly reduce standard reaction time and are suitable for automation. Novel substituted hydrazines have been prepared for the straightforward incorporation of aza-arginine and aza-proline residues. This work will enable aza-scan to become a more common and standard method for structure-activity relationship studies of peptides.