3D-QSAR CoMFA studies on sulfonamide inhibitors of the Rv3588c β-carbonic anhydrase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and design of not yet synthesized new molecules

The human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis contains three β-carbonic anhydrases (CAs, EC 4.2.1.1) in its genome. Inhibition of some of these CAs was shown to modulate the growth of M. tuberculosis. 3D-QSAR Comparative molecular field analyses (CoMFA) were carried out on inhibitors of the enzyme Rv3588c (also denominated mtCA 2). A series of sulfonamides known to inhibit mtCA 2, including some diazenylbenzenesulfonamides, was considered in our study. The predictive ability of the model was assessed using a test set of seven compounds. The best model has demonstrated a good fit having predictive r(2) value of 0.93 and cross-validated coefficient q(2) value as 0.88 in tripos CoMFA region. Our results indicate that the steric and electrostatic factors play a significant role in mtCA 2 inhibition for the investigated compounds. We proposed nine new not yet synthesized mtCA 2 inhibitors, all of them probably with significantly improved anti-Rv3588c inhibitory activity.