2D, 3D-QSAR and docking studies of 1,2,3-thiadiazole thioacetanilides analogues as potent HIV-1 non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND The discovery of clinically relevant inhibitors of HIV-RT for antiviral therapy has proven to be a challenging task. To identify novel and potent HIV-RT inhibitors, the quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) approach became very useful and largely widespread technique forligand-based drug design. METHODS We perform the two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) QSAR studies of a series of 1,2,3-thiadiazole thioacetanilides analogues to elucidate the structural properties required for HIV-RT inhibitory activity. RESULTS The 2D-QSAR studies were performed using multiple linear regression method, giving r2 = 0.97 and q2 = 0.94. The 3D-QSAR studies were performed using the stepwise variable selection k-nearest neighbor molecular field analysis approach; a leave-one-out cross-validated correlation coefficient q2 = 0.89 and a non-cross-validated correlation coefficient r2 = 0.97 were obtained. Docking analysis suggests that the new series have comparable binding affinity with the standard compounds. CONCLUSIONS This approach showed that hydrophobic and electrostatic effects dominantly determine binding affinities which will further useful for development of new NNRTIs.