Parallel solution-phase and microwave-assisted synthesis of new S-DABO derivatives endowed with subnanomolar anti-HIV-1 activity

A simple and efficient methodology for the parallel solution-phase synthesis has been set up to obtain a series of thiouracils, in turn selectively S-benzylated under microwave irradiation to give new S-DABOs. Biological screening led to the identification of compounds with nanomolar activity toward both the highly purified recombinant human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reverse transcriptase (RT) enzyme (wild-type and mutants) and wild-type (wt) and mutant HIV-1 strains. In particular, 20 was found to be the most potent S-DABO reported so far (ID = 26 nM toward the isolated wt enzyme) with subnanomolar activity toward both the wt and the pluriresistant virus (IRLL98) HIV-1 strain (EC < 0.14 nM and EC = 0.22 nM, respectively). Molecular modeling calculations were also performed to investigate the binding mode of such compounds onto the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor binding site and to rationalize the relationships between their chemical structure and activity values toward wt RT. © 2005 American Chemical Society.