Bioisosterism in Drug Discovery and Development - An Overview

Bioisosterism is a unique approach used by medicinal chemists for the reasonable modification of lead compounds into safer, more clinically effective, economical, and therapeutically attractive drugs. It is one of the most crucial lead modification tools, widely applied in the field of rational drug design to amplify the desired activity and eliminate undesirable properties, thus facilitating the optimization of pharmacokinetic profile and achievement of target selectivity. This review demonstrates the importance of bioisosterism in the process of drug discovery and development and highlights its relevance in the molecular evolution of many classes of drugs such as antibacterial sulfonamides, anticancer drugs, antivirals, antifungals, anthelmintics, local anesthetics, barbiturates, antidepressants, antihistamines, proton pump inhibitors and work carried out by our team of researchers. The role of bioisosterism as a strategy to achieve inhibition of enzymes such as thymidylate synthase, DNA polymerase, reverse transcriptase and several others has also been pointed out. There are no limits to the classes of drugs where bioisosterism has been successfully applied.