Design, synthesis and the structure-activity relationship of agonists targeting on the ALDH2 catalytic tunnel

ALDH2, a key enzyme in the alcohol metabolism process, detoxifies several kinds of toxic small molecular aldehydes, which induce severe organ damages. The development of novel Alda-1 type ALDH2 activators was mostly relied on HTS but not rational design so far. To clarify the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of the skeleton of Alda-1 analogs by synthesis of the least number of analogs, we prepared 31 Alda-1 analogs and 3 isoflavone derivatives and evaluated for their ALDH2-activating activity. Among these, the ALDH2-activating activity of mono-halogen-substituted (Cl and Br) N-piperonylbenzamides 3b and 3 k, and non-aromatic amides 8a-8c, were 1.5-2.1 folds higher than that of Alda-1 at 20 μM. The relationship between binding affinity in computer aided molecular docking model and the ALDH2-activating activity assays were clarified as follows: for Alda-1 analogs, with the formation of halogen bonds, the enzyme-activating activity was found to follow a specific regression curve within the range between -5 kcal/mol and -4 kcal/mol. For isoflavone derivatives, the basic moiety on the B ring enhance the activating activity. These results provide a new direction of utilizing computer-aided modeling to design novel ALDH2 agonists in the future.