Design, synthesis, and binding studies of bidentate Zn-chelating peptidic inhibitors of glyoxalase-I

The known affinity of ethyl acetoacetate (ACC) toward divalent zinc prompted us to attempt its employment as a chelating moiety in the design of glyoxalase-I inhibitors. A practical synthetic route was developed to incorporate this pharmacophore into the side chain of glutamic acid, with flexibility to allow incorporation of additional functionality at the end-stage of the synthesis. Herein, the details of this synthetic approach as well as the evaluation of the resultant β-keto ester compounds are reported.