Computer-aid drug design, synthesis, and anticoagulant activity evaluation of novel dabigatran derivatives as thrombin inhibitors

In this study, computer-aided drug design techniques were adopted to explore the structural and chemical features for dabigatran and design novel derivatives. The built 3D-QSAR models demonstrated significant statistical quality and excellent predictive ability by internal and external validation. Based on QSAR information, 11 novel dabigatran derivatives (12a–12k) were designed and predicted, then ADME prediction and molecular docking were performed. Furthermore, all designed compounds were synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR and HR-MS. Finally, they were evaluated for anticoagulant activity in vitro. The activity results showed that the 10 obtained compounds exhibited comparable activity to the reference dabigatran (IC50 = 9.99 ± 1.48 nM), except for compound 12i. Further analysis on molecular docking was performed on three compounds (12a, 12c and 12g) with better activity (IC50 = 11.19 ± 1.70 nM, IC50 = 10.94 ± 1.85 nM and IC50 = 11.19 ± 1.70 nM). MD simulations (10 ns) were carried out, and their binding free energies were calculated, which showed strong hydrogen bond and pi–pi stacking interactions with key residues Gly219, Asp189 and Trp60D. The 10 novel dabigatran derivatives obtained can be further studied as anticoagulant candidate compounds. [Display omitted]