Hydroxamic acids are outstanding zinc chelating groups that can be used to design potent and selective metalloenzyme inhibitors in various therapeutic areas. Some hydroxamic acids display a high plasma clearance resulting in poor in vivo activity, though they may be very potent compounds in vitro. We designed a 57-member library of hydroxamic acids to explore the structure–plasma stability relationships in these series and to identify which enzyme(s) and which pharmacophores are critical for plasma stability. Arylesterases and carboxylesterases were identified as the main metabolic enzymes for hydroxamic acids. Finally, we suggest structural features to be introduced or removed to improve stability. This work thus provides the first medicinal chemistry toolbox (experimental procedures and structural guidance) to assess and control the plasma stability of hydroxamic acids and realize their full potential as in vivo pharmacological probes and therapeutic agents. This study is particularly relevant to preclinical development as it allows obtaining compounds equally stable in human and rodent models.

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控制异羟肟酸的血浆稳定性：MedChem工具箱

异羟肟酸是杰出的锌螯合基团，可用于设计各种治疗领域中的有效和选择性金属酶抑制剂。一些异羟肟酸显示出较高的血浆清除率，导致体内活性差，尽管它们在体外可能是非常有效的化合物。我们设计了一个由57名成员组成的异羟肟酸文库，以探索这些系列中结构与血浆的稳定性关系，并确定哪些酶和哪些药效团对血浆稳定性至关重要。芳基酯酶和羧酸酯酶被确定为异羟肟酸的主要代谢酶。最后，我们建议引入或删除结构特征以提高稳定性。因此，这项工作提供了第一个药物化学工具箱（实验程序和结构指导），用于评估和控制异羟肟酸的血浆稳定性，并充分发挥其作为体内药理探针和治疗剂的潜力。这项研究与临床前开发特别相关，因为它允许获得在人和啮齿动物模型中同样稳定的化合物。