Pharmacophore modeling and atom-based 3D-QSAR studies on amino derivatives of indole as potent isoprenylcysteine carboxyl methyltransferase (Icmt) inhibitors

• The study has been focused on exploring possible ligand based modeling options to develop robust QSAR model(s).
• Different pharmacophore hypotheses of amino derivatives of indole as Icmt inhibitors have been developed using PHASE.
• A four-point pharmacophore with two hydrophobic groups and two aromatic rings as pharmacophore features has been generated.
• An atom-based 3D-QSAR analyses have been carried out.
• The structural requirements responsible for high affinity of Icmt inhibitors have been determined.

Icmt enzymes are of particular importance in the post-translational modification of proteins that are involved in the regulation of cell growth. Thus, effective Icmt inhibitors may be of significant therapeutic importance in oncogenesis. To determine the structural requirements responsible for high affinity of previously reported amino derivatives of indole as Icmt inhibitors, a successful pharmacophore generation and atom-based 3D-QSAR analysis have been carried out. The best four-point pharmacophore model with four features HHRR: two hydrophobic groups (H) and two aromatic rings (R) as pharmacophore features was developed by PHASE module of Schrodinger suite. In this study, highly predictive 3D-QSAR models have been developed for Icmt inhibition using HHRR.191 hypothesis. The pharmacophore hypothesis yielded a 3D-QSAR model with good partial least-square (PLS) statistics results. The validation of the PHASE model was done by dividing the dataset into training and test set. The statistically significant the four-point pharmacophore hypothesis yielded a 3D-QSAR model with good PLS statistics results (R2 = 0.9387, Q2 = 0.8132, F = 114.8, SD = 0.1567, RMSE = 0.2682, Pearson-R = 0.9147). The generated model showed excellent predictive power, with a correlation coefficient of Q2 = 0.8132. The results of ligand-based pharmacophore hypothesis and atom-based 3D-QSAR provide detailed structural insights as well as highlights important binding features of novel amino derivatives of indole as Icmt inhibitors which can afford guidance for the rational drug design of novel, potent and promising Icmt inhibitors with enhanced potencies and may prove helpful for further lead optimization and virtual screening.