Structure-activity relationship of ligands of uracil phosphoribosyltransferase from Toxoplasma gondii

One hundred compounds were evaluated as ligands of Toxoplasma gondii uracil phosphoribosyltransferase (UPRTase, EC 2.4.2.9) by examining their ability to inhibit this enzyme in vitro. Inhibition was quantified by determining apparent Ki values for those compounds that inhibited T. gondii UPRTase by greater than 10% at a concentration of 2 mM. Five compounds (4-thiopyridine, 2-thiopyrimidine, trithiocyanuric acid, 1-deazauracil and 2,4-dithiouracil) bound to the enzyme better than two known substrates for T. gondii UPRTase, 5-fluorouracil and emimycin, which have antitoxoplasmal activity (Pfefferkorn ER, Exp Parasitol 44: 26-35, 1978; Pfefferkorn et al., Exp Parasitol 69: 129-139, 1989). In addition, several selected compounds were evaluated as substrates for T. gondii UPRTase, and it was found that 2,4-dithiouracil is also a substrate for this enzyme. On the basis of these data, a structure-activity relationship for the binding of ligands to T. gondii UPRTase was determined using uracil as a reference compound.