Oxime K074 – in vitro and in silico reactivation of acetylcholinesterase inhibited by nerve agents and pesticides

Abstract

Oxime K074 was formerly considered to be a lead structure for design of novel oximes for reactivation of tabun-inhibited acetylcholinesterase (AChE). In this study, we are summarizing its reactivation activity in case of other nerve agents (sarin, cyclosarin, VX and Russian VX) and pesticides (chlorpyrifos, methylchlorpyrifos and DDVP). For this purpose, standard in vitro method using rat brain homogenate was used. As resulted, oxime K074 was able to reactivate brain ChE (cholinesterases) inhibited by all used nerve agents and pesticides excluding cyclosarin-inhibited ChE. Only slight modification in structure of sarin (isopropyl moiety) and cyclosarin (cyclohexyl moiety) caused extraordinary differences in the reactivation of acetylcholinesterase inhibited by these nerve agents. Obtained molecular docking results suggest that the oxime K074 interacts very well with the inhibitors addressed in this work, and the data obtained by the QM/MM approach showed a good correlation with our experimental results of reactivation rate (%) by the oxime K074.

Keywords:

• Reactivator
• nerve agent
• cholinesterases
• antidote
• pesticides

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (No. 18-01734S), University of Hradec Kralove (FIM Excelence, FS VT2201/2018) and University of Defence (Long Term Development Plan – 1011).