Inherited blinding diseases retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and a subset of Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA) are caused by the misfolding and mistrafficking of rhodopsin molecules, which aggregate and accumulate in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), leading to photoreceptor cell death. One potential therapeutic strategy to prevent the loss of photoreceptors in these conditions is to identify opsin-binding compounds that act as chemical chaperones for opsin, aiding its proper folding and trafficking to the outer cell membrane. Aiming to identify novel compounds with such effect, a rational ligand-based approach was applied to the structure of the visual pigment chromophore, 11-cis-retinal, and its locked analogue 11-cis-6mr-retinal. Following molecular docking studies on the main chromophore binding site of rhodopsin, 49 novel compounds were synthesized according to optimized one-to seven-step synthetic routes. These agents were evaluated for their ability to compete for the chromophore binding site of opsin, and their capacity to increase the trafficking of the P23H opsin mutant from the ER to the cell membrane. Different new molecules displayed an effect in at least one assay, acting either as chemical chaperones or as stabilizers of the 9-cis-retinal-rhodopsin complex. These compounds could provide the basis to develop novel therapeutics for RP and LCA.

遗传性致盲疾病视网膜色素变性 (RP) 和莱伯先天性黑蒙 (LCA) 的一个子集是由视紫红质分子的错误折叠和运输错误引起的，这些分子在内质网 (ER) 中聚集和积累，导致感光细胞死亡。在这些情况下防止光感受器损失的一种潜在治疗策略是识别视蛋白结合化合物，它们充当视蛋白的化学伴侣，帮助其正确折叠和运输到外细胞膜。为了识别具有这种效果的新化合物，基于配体的合理方法应用于视觉色素发色团 11-顺式- 视黄醛及其锁定类似物 11-顺式的结构-6mr-视网膜。在对视紫红质的主要发色团结合位点进行分子对接研究后，按照优化的一到七步合成路线合成了 49 种新型化合物。评估了这些试剂竞争视蛋白发色团结合位点的能力，以及它们增加 P23H 视蛋白突变体从 ER 到细胞膜的运输的能力。不同的新分子在至少一种测定中显示出效果，它们既可以作为化学伴侣，也可以作为 9-顺式-视网膜-视紫红质复合物的稳定剂。这些化合物可以为开发 RP 和 LCA 的新疗法提供基础。