Design And Synthesis Of Novel Angiotensin Converting Enzyme (ACE) Inhibitors Having Antioxidant Activity

Abstract

Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) catalyzes the conversion of angiotensin I (Ang I) to angiotensin II (AngII). ACE also cleaves the terminal dipeptide of vasodilating hormone bradykinin (a nonapeptide) to its inactive form. Therefore, inhibition of ACE is one of the treatments of hypertension. A number of ACE inhibitory antihypertensive drugs are known. ‘Oxidative stress’ is another disease state caused by an imbalance in the production of oxidants and antioxidants in the body. A number of studies suggest that hypertension and oxidative stress are interdependent. Therefore, ACE inhibitors having antioxidant property are considered beneficial for the treatment of hypertension. Generally, selenium compounds exhibit better antioxidant behavior than their sulfur analogues. Therefore, we have synthesized a number of selenium analogues of captopril, an ACE inhibitor used as antihypertensive drug. Similar to captopril, the selenium analogues of captopril exhibited excellent ACE inhibition property. It was observed that these compounds are very good scavengers of peroxynitrite (PN), a strong oxidizing as well as nitrating agent found in vivo. The orientation of the chiral centers in these compounds was found to be very important for their ACE inhibition behavior. A number of selenocysteine- and cysteine-containing dipeptides and tripeptides were synthesized as inhibitors of ACE. It was observed that the ACE inhibition properties of these compounds depend on various factors such as orientation of the amino functionality, substitution at the C-terminal of the inhibitor, ring size of the proline moiety or the availability of the terminal acid group in carboxylate form etc. A structure-function correlation was drawn for the ACE inhibition properties of the peptide-based selenium-or sulfur-containing compounds. These studies reveal that the antioxidant properties do not depend on the side-chain functional groups, but they depend on the availability of selenium or sulfur centers. Selenium-based compounds were found to be better antioxidants than those containing sulfur moieties. In conclusion, the present study reveals that the replacement of sulfur atom in captopril and its analogues by selenium enhances the antioxidant activity. The reaction products of lactoperoxidase (LPO)-catalyzed iodination of Ang II were separated and characterized. It was observed that LPO-catalyzed iodination of Ang II takes place preferentially at the tyrosine residue. LPO-catalyzed iodination of Ang II is inhibited by commonly used antithyroid drugs such as MMI, MTU, PTU and also by antihypertensive drug captopril. It was also observed that the monoiodo Ang I is a better substrate for ACE compared to the natural substrate Ang I. The site of nitration of Ang II by PN was also determined by MS-MS analyses. This study reveals that the nitration takes place at the tyrosine residue.