Metabolic stability of peptidomimetics: N-methyl and aza heptapeptide analogs of a PKB/Akt inhibitor

Linear peptides suffer from poor pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. Peptidomimetics are designed to overcome these pharmacological drawbacks while maintaining the biological effects of the parent peptides. Aza-peptides, in which an alpha carbon is replaced with nitrogen, are promising peptidomimetic analogs; however, little is known about the stability of these analogs toward enzymatic degradation. We performed systematic aza and N-methyl scans of a PKB/Akt inhibitor, PTR6154. We evaluated the stability of the aza-scan and N-methyl scan libraries toward enzymatic degradation by trypsin/chymotrypsin. Our results indicate that the modification site is important for metabolic stability and that aza-peptides have a more global effect than N-methylation, affecting cleavage sites distant from the modification site.