Design, synthesis and preliminary SAR studies of novel N-arylmethyl substituted piperidine-linked aniline derivatives as potent HIV-1 NNRTIs

A series of novel N-arylmethyl substituted piperidine-linked aniline derivatives were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their anti-HIV activity in MT-4 cells. All the new compounds showed moderate to potent activities against wild-type (wt) HIV-1 with an EC50 range from 0.022 to 2.1 mu M. Among them, compound 5a6 (EC50 = 0.022 +/- 0.0091 mu M, SI > 10,770) was confirmed to be the most potent and selective inhibitor, which proved more potent than DDI and DLV in a cell-based assay against wt HIV-1, and more efficient than NVP in an RT (reverse transcriptase) assay. Besides, it is worth noting that compound 7a1 retained moderate inhibitory activity (EC50 = 4.8 +/- 0.95 mu M) against the HIV-1 double RT mutant strain (K103N/Y181C). The preliminary structure-activity relationship was discussed and rationalized by molecular simulation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.