Predictive modeling of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) agonism
Abstract The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) plays a key role in the regulation of gene expression in metabolic machinery and detoxification systems. In the recent years, this receptor has attracted interest as a therapeutic target for immunological, oncogenic and inflammatory conditions. In the present report, in silico and in vitro approaches were combined to study the activation of the AhR. To this end, a large database of chemical compounds with known AhR agonistic activity was employed to build 5 classifiers based on the Adaboost (AdB), Gradient Boosting (GB), Random Forest (RF), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms, respectively. The built classifier…
Discovery of 2-aryl and 2-pyridinylbenzothiazoles endowed with antimicrobial and aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonistic activities
Highlights • Sixteen functionalized benzothiazoles were evaluated as antimicrobial agents and as AhR modulators. • The benzothiazoles showed noticeable antimicrobial effects against Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens and against the yeast C. albicans. • Six benzothiazoles exhibited significant AhR agonist effects in a cell-based reporter gene assay. • Structure-activity relationship analysis exposed some relevant headings on the substituent's contributions to the studied biological effects. • Compound 12 displayed promising biocide activity and AhR agonism as well as an adequate ADMET profile and binding similarities with FICZ.
Elucidating the aryl hydrocarbon receptor antagonism from a chemical-structural perspective.
The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) plays an important role in several biological processes such as reproduction, immunity and homoeostasis. However, little is known on the chemical-structural and physicochemical features that influence the activity of AhR antagonistic modulators. In the present report, in vitro AhR antagonistic activity evaluations, based on a chemical-activated luciferase gene expression (AhR-CALUX) bioassay, and an extensive literature review were performed with the aim of constructing a structurally diverse database of contaminants and potentially toxic chemicals. Subsequently, QSAR models based on Linear Discriminant Analysis and Logistic Regression, as well as two tox…
Targeting the aryl hydrocarbon receptor with a novel set of triarylmethanes
International audience; The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a chemical sensor upregulating the transcription of responsive genes associated with endocrine homeostasis, oxidative balance and diverse metabolic, immunological and inflammatory processes, which have raised the pharmacological interest on its modulation. Herein, a novel set of 32 unsymmetrical triarylmethane (TAM) class of structures has been synthesized, characterized and their AhR transcriptional activity evaluated using a cell-based assay. Eight of the assayed TAM compounds (14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 28) exhibited AhR agonism but none of them showed antagonist effects. TAMs bearing benzotrifluoride, naphthol or heteroarom…
Plant Occurring Flavonoids as Modulators of the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor
International audience; The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a transcription factor deeply implicated in health and diseases. Historically identified as a sensor of xenobiotics and mainly toxic substances, AhR has recently become an emerging pharmacological target in cancer, immunology, inflammatory conditions, and aging. Multiple AhR ligands are recognized, with plant occurring flavonoids being the largest group of natural ligands of AhR in the human diet. The biological implications of the modulatory effects of flavonoids on AhR could be highlighted from a toxicological and environmental concern and for the possible pharmacological applicability. Overall, the possible AhR-mediated harmf…