Issue 2, 2021

Inhibitors of thiol-mediated uptake

Abstract

Ellman's reagent has caused substantial confusion and concern as a probe for thiol-mediated uptake because it is the only established inhibitor available but works neither efficiently nor reliably. Here we use fluorescent cyclic oligochalcogenides that enter cells by thiol-mediated uptake to systematically screen for more potent inhibitors, including epidithiodiketopiperazines, benzopolysulfanes, disulfide-bridged γ-turned peptides, heteroaromatic sulfones and cyclic thiosulfonates, thiosulfinates and disulfides. With nanomolar activity, the best inhibitors identified are more than 5000 times better than Ellman's reagent. Different activities found with different reporters reveal thiol-mediated uptake as a complex multitarget process. Preliminary results on the inhibition of the cellular uptake of pseudo-lentivectors expressing SARS-CoV-2 spike protein do not exclude potential of efficient inhibitors of thiol-mediated uptake for the development of new antivirals.

Graphical abstract: Inhibitors of thiol-mediated uptake

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
01 Okt. 2020
Accepted
26 Okt. 2020
First published
18 Nov. 2020
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2021,12, 626-631

Inhibitors of thiol-mediated uptake

Y. Cheng, A. Pham, T. Kato, B. Lim, D. Moreau, J. López-Andarias, L. Zong, N. Sakai and S. Matile, Chem. Sci., 2021, 12, 626 DOI: 10.1039/D0SC05447J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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