Identification of novel histone deacetylase 1 inhibitors by combined pharmacophore modeling, 3D-QSAR analysis, in silico screening and Density Functional Theory (DFT) approaches

•Pharmacophore model of HDAC1 inhibitors was developed and it was validated to obtain statistically significant model.•Screening of various compound libraries was done to identify novel and potential leads.•Molecular docking and binding free energy calculation were performed to define binding affinity of the ligands.•Density Functional Theory was employed to explore electronic features of the ligands.•Analysis of HOMO and LUMO orbitals was done to define electron density.

Overexpression of HDAC1, a member of Class I histone deacetylase is reported to be implicated in breast cancer. Epigenetic alteration in carcinogenesis has been the thrust of research for few decades. Increased deacetylation leads to accelerated cell proliferation, cell migration, angiogenesis and invasion. HDAC1 is pronounced as the potential drug target towards the treatment of breast cancer. In this study, the biochemical potential of 6-aminonicotinamide derivatives was rationalized. Five point pharmacophore model with one hydrogen-bond acceptor (A3), two hydrogen-bond donors (D5, D6), one ring (R12) and one hydrophobic group (H8) was developed using 6-aminonicotinamide derivatives. The pharmacophore hypothesis yielded a 3D-QSAR model with correlation-coefficient (r2 = 0.977, q2 = 0.801) and it was externally validated with (r2pred = 0.929, r2cv = 0.850 and r2m = 0.856) which reveals the statistical significance of the model having high predictive power. The model was then employed as 3D search query for virtual screening against compound libraries (Zinc, Maybridge, Enamine, Asinex, Toslab, LifeChem and Specs) in order to identify novel scaffolds which can be experimentally validated to design future drug molecule. Density Functional Theory (DFT) at B3LYP/6-31G* level was employed to explore the electronic features of the ligands involved in charge transfer reaction during receptor ligand interaction. Binding free energy (ΔGbind) calculation was done using MM/GBSA which defines the affinity of ligands towards the receptor.