Rational design of first generation inhibitors for trehalose 6-phosphate phosphatases

In this study, trehalose 6-phosphate phosphatase (T6PP) was targeted for inhibitor development. T6PP catalyzes the hydrolysis of trehalose-6-phosphate to form trehalose and inorganic phosphate, a reaction essential to important fungal, bacterial, and nematodal pathogens. At the current time, there are no specific inhibitors of T6PP available to serve as tools for interrogating its structure and function nor as leads for pharmaceutical applications. Herein, we describe the synthesis of non-hydrolysable mimics of trehalose-6-phosphate, which incorporate 6-sulfate (1), -phosphonate (2), -fluorophosphonate (3) and –boronate (4) groups in place of the 6-phosphate moiety of the substrate. The inhibitory efficacies of these adducts were evaluated against trehalose 6-phosphate phosphatases selected from evolutionarily distant pathogenic bacteria and nematodes. Phosphonates 2 and 3 were found to display good inhibitory activities against the T6PPs, while the sulfate analog, trehalose-6-sulfate, proved to be a particularly effective broad-spectrum inhibitor of these phosphatases and an ideal prototype for optimization.