Discovery of potent and selective urea-based ROCK inhibitors: Exploring the inhibitor's potency and ROCK2/PKA selectivity by 3D-QSAR, molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations

An activity model and a selectivity model from 3D-QSAR studies were established by CoMFA and CoMSIA to explore the SAR. Then docking was used to study the binding modes between ligand and kinases (ROCK2 and PKA), and the molecular docking results were further validated by MD simulations. Computational results suggested that substitution containing positive charge attached to the middle phenyl ring, or electropositive group in urea linker was favored for both activity and ROCK2/PKA selectivity. Finally, three compounds were designed, and biological evaluation demonstrated that these molecular models were effective for guiding the design of potent and selective ROCK inhibitors. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.