Discovery of novel inhibitors of vascular endothelial growth factor-A–Neuropilin-1 interaction by structure-based virtual screening

Neuropilin-1 (NRP-1), one of the most important co-receptors of vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A), increases its angiogenic action in several chronic diseases including cancer by increasing the activity of associated tyrosine kinase receptors, VEGFR1 and VEGFR2. Binding of VEGF-A to NRP-1 plays a critical role in pathological angiogenesis and tumor progression. Today, targeting this interaction is a validated approach to fight against angiogenesis-dependent diseases. Only anti-NRP-1 antibodies, peptide and peptidomimetic drug-candidates or hits have been developed thus far. In order to identify potent orally active small organic molecules various experimental and in silico approaches can be used. Here we report, novel promising small drug-like molecules disrupting the binding of VEGF-A165 to NRP-1. We carried out structure-based virtual screening experiments using the ChemBridge compound collection on the VEGF-A165 binding pocket of NRP-1. After docking and two rounds of similarity search computations, we identified 4 compounds that inhibit the biotinylated VEGF-A165 binding to recombinant NRP-1 with Ki of about 10 μM. These compounds contain a common chlorobenzyloxy alkyloxy halogenobenzyl amine scaffold that can serve as a base for further development of new NRP-1 inhibitors.

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