Chiral discrimination of cyclodecapeptide to anti-COVID-19 clinical candidates: a theoretical study

Various undesirable side effects are frequently associated with isomers of chiral clinical agents. The separation of chiral medicines remains a challenging issue in the medicines research. In this work, we employed cyclic decapeptide as the host molecule and the M06-2X theoretical computational method for chiral recognition of four clinical candidate guests and their isomers, including bucillamine, molnupiravir, azvudine, and VV116, which are relevant for the treatment of COVID-19. The obtained results indicated that bucillamine and molnupiravir and their respective isomers may be distinguished by cyclic decapeptide and that some of the isomers of Azvudine and VV116 may be discriminated by cyclic decapeptide. The inclusion conformation, deformation analysis, and electrostatic potential analysis also visualized the binding modes and binding sites between cyclic peptides and medicine candidates. A series of weak interaction analyses suggest that hydrogen bonding and dispersion interactions may be the primary factors for the recognition and separation of the clinical candidates by cyclic decapeptides. Visualized analyses of noncovalent interaction, hydrogen bond interaction, and NBO, AIM topological demonstrated that the difference of dispersion interaction is not obvious between the complexes, while the type and number of hydrogen bonds are very different, hinting that hydrogen bonds might be crucial for the differentiation of molnupiravir and its isomers. These findings might provide a theoretical reference for the identification and separation of chiral compounds in host–guest interaction. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11224-023-02149-5.