A Tiny Change Makes a Big Difference in the Anti-Parasitic Activities of an HDAC Inhibitor

We previously synthesized an hydroxamate derivative (N-hydroxy-4-[2-(3-methoxyphenyl)acetamido]benzamide) named 363 with potent anti-Toxoplasma gondii activity and histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) effects. Here we show that 1-N-hydroxy-4-N-[(2-methoxyphenyl)methyl]benzene-1,4-dicarboxamide, a 363 isomer, does not have antiparasitic potency and has a 13-fold decrease in HDACi activity. The in silico modeling of T. gondii HDACs of the type II strain discloses identity varying from 25% to 62% on more than 250 residues for S8EP32_TOXG and A0A125YPH4_TOXGM. We observed a high conservation degree with the human HDAC2 (53% and 64% identity, respectively) and a moderate one with the human HDAC8 (30–40%). Two other TgHDACs, S8F6L4_TOXGM and S8GEI3_TOXGM, were identified as displaying a higher similarity with some bacterial orthologs (~35%) than with the human enzymes (~25%). The docking in parallel of the two compounds on the models generated allowed us to gain insights on the docking of these hydroxamate derivatives that guide their specificity and potency against T. gondii histone deacetylase. This information would constitute the rationale from which more specific derivatives can be synthetized.