QSAR analysis of substituted benzylamino- and heterocyclylmethylamino-carbodithioate derivatives of 4-（3H）-quinazolinone using CoMFA and SCORE2.0

Thymidylate synthase (TS) is a critical enzyme for DNA biosynthesis and many nonclassical lipophilic antifolates targeting this enzyme are quite efficient and encouraging as antitumor drugs. In this paper, the binding model of 14 antifolates of substituted benzylamino- and heterocyclylmethylamino- carbodithioate derivatives of 4-(3H)-quinazolinone with TS is examined using molecular simulation methods―― FlexiDock and SCORE2.0. The resulting conformation and orientation of these antifolates are directly applied to CoMFA study. The robust QSAR model, its three-dimensional contour map, and binding score of these antifolates derived from SCORE2.0 provide guidelines for structural optimiza- tion of current antifolates. The experiment indicates that deletion of cancer chemopreventive structure of dithiocarbamate is unfavorable for interaction between TS and antifolates.