Structure-Based Prediction of Subtype Selectivity of Histamine H_3 Receptor Selective Antagonists in Clinical Trials

Abstract

Histamine receptors (HRs) are excellent drug targets for the treatment of diseases, such as schizophrenia, psychosis, depression, migraine, allergies, asthma, ulcers, and hypertension. Among them, the human H_3 histamine receptor (hH3HR) antagonists have been proposed for specific therapeutic applications, including treatment of Alzheimer's disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), epilepsy, and obesity. However, many of these drug candidates cause undesired side effects through the cross-reactivity with other histamine receptor subtypes. In order to develop improved selectivity and activity for such treatments, it would be useful to have the three-dimensional structures for all four HRs. We report here the predicted structures of four HR subtypes (H_1, H_2, H_3, and H_4) using the GEnSeMBLE (GPCR ensemble of structures in membrane bilayer environment) Monte Carlo protocol, sampling ~35 million combinations of helix packings to predict the 10 most stable packings for each of the four subtypes. Then we used these 10 best protein structures with the DarwinDock Monte Carlo protocol to sample ~50 000 × 10^(20) poses to predict the optimum ligand–protein structures for various agonists and antagonists. We find that E206^(5.46) contributes most in binding H3 selective agonists in agreement with experimental mutation studies. We also find that conserved E5.46/S5.43 in both of hH_(3)HR and hH_(4)HR are involved in H_(3)/ H_(4) subtype selectivity. In addition, we find that M378^(6.55) in hH_(3)HR provides additional hydrophobic interactions different from hH_(4)HR (the corresponding amino acid of T323^(6.55) in hH_(4)HR) to provide additional subtype bias. From these studies, we developed a pharmacophore model based on our predictions for known hH_(3)HR selective antagonists in clinical study [ABT-239 1, GSK-189,254 2, PF-3654746 3, and BF2.649 (tiprolisant) 4] that suggests critical selectivity directing elements are: the basic proton interacting with D114^(3.32), the spacer, the aromatic ring substituted with the hydrophilic or lipophilic groups interacting with lipophilic pockets in transmembranes (TMs) 3–5–6 and the aliphatic ring located in TMs 2–3–7. These 3D structures for all four HRs should help guide the rational design of novel drugs for the subtype selective antagonists and agonists with reduced side effects.

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