Design, Synthesis, Biological Activity and Molecular Dynamics Studies of Specific Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B Inhibitors over SHP-2

Over expressing in PTPN1 (encoding Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B, PTP1B), a protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) that plays an overall positive role in insulin signaling, is linked to the pathogenesis of diabetes and obesity. The relationship between PTP1B and human diseases exhibits PTP1B as the target to treat these diseases. In this article, small weight molecules of the imidazolidine series were screened from databases and optimized on silicon as the inhibitors of PTP1B based on the steric conformation and electronic configuration of thiazolidinedione (TZD) compounds. The top three candidates were tested using an in vitro biological assay after synthesis. Finally, we report a novel inhibitor, Compound 13, that specifically inhibits PTP1B over the closely related phosphatase Src homology 2 (SH2) domain-containing phosphatase 2 (SHP-2) at 80 μM. Its IC(50) values are reported in this paper as well. This compound was further verified by computer analysis for its ability to combine the catalytic domains of PTP1B and SHP-2 by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.