The importance of a nitrogen atom in modulators of multidrug resistance

The presence of a nitrogen atom, charged at physiological pH, has frequently been considered to be a hallmark of P-glycoprotein (PGP) inhibitors, although certain steroids, such as progesterone, lack a nitrogen atom and still are active modulators of PGP. The present study was aimed at investigating the role the nitrogen atom plays in the activity of PGP inhibitors. Propafenone-related amines, anilines, and amides that cover a broad range of pK(a) values, as well as an ester, were synthesized and tested for multidrug resistance-reverting activity. The sum of the hydrogen bond acceptor strengths was calculated and correlated with EC(50) values for PGP inhibition. For the complete set of 12 compounds, an excellent correlation between these two parameters was found; this included the ester GP570, which lacks a nitrogen atom but contains the strong hydrogen bond-accepting ester unit. The interaction of the nitrogen atom with PGP therefore is nonional and is determined by the sum of the hydrogen acceptor strengths of the region. The high predictivity of the obtained model is demonstrated in a leave-one-out cross-validation procedure.