astemizole   Click here for help

GtoPdb Ligand ID: 2603

Synonyms: Hismanal®
Approved drug PDB Ligand
astemizole is an approved drug
Compound class: Synthetic organic
Comment: Astemizole was originally identified as a histamine H1 receptor antagonist. Astemizole use as an antihistamine was withdrawn from the US market in 1999 as it caused arrhythmias, probably due to blocking the hERG potassium channel (Kv11.1) [5].

A 2014 publication showed that astemizole's anti-proliferative effects in cancer cells is due to disruption of a protein-protein interaction required for the formation of the active polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) [3]. PRC2 contains the histone methyltransferase EZH2, which is responsible for catalytic trimethylation of lysine 27 on histone H3 (H3K27me3), an epigenetic modification that is a hallmark of silent chromatin. Aberrant PRC2 activity is associated with cancer initiation and progression. Astemizole was shown to inhibit the interaction between EZH2 and a PRC2 structural protein called embryonic ectoderm development (EED) [1], and that this action destabilizes PRC2 and reduces its methylation activity.
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2D Structure
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Physico-chemical Properties
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Hydrogen bond acceptors 3
Hydrogen bond donors 1
Rotatable bonds 8
Topological polar surface area 42.32
Molecular weight 458.25
XLogP 5.81
No. Lipinski's rules broken 1
SMILES / InChI / InChIKey
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Canonical SMILES COc1ccc(cc1)CCN1CCC(CC1)Nc1nc2c(n1Cc1ccc(cc1)F)cccc2
Isomeric SMILES COc1ccc(cc1)CCN1CCC(CC1)Nc1nc2c(n1Cc1ccc(cc1)F)cccc2
InChI InChI=1S/C28H31FN4O/c1-34-25-12-8-21(9-13-25)14-17-32-18-15-24(16-19-32)30-28-31-26-4-2-3-5-27(26)33(28)20-22-6-10-23(29)11-7-22/h2-13,24H,14-20H2,1H3,(H,30,31)
InChI Key GXDALQBWZGODGZ-UHFFFAOYSA-N
Bioactivity Comments
Astemizole is one of a number of drugs that are cationic amphiphilic in nature, for which anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity has been identified in drug repurposing screens. Tummino et al. (2021; bioRxiv preprint PMID: 33791693 target="_blank") suggest that this antiviral activity is most likely a result of the drug promoting phospholipidosis via disruption of lipid homeostasis.
Selectivity at GPCRs
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Target Sp. Type Action Value Parameter Concentration range (M) Reference
H1 receptor Primary target of this compound Hs Antagonist Antagonist 8.5 pKi - 4
pKi 8.5 (Ki 3x10-9 M) [4]
Selectivity at ion channels
Key to terms and symbols Click column headers to sort
Target Sp. Type Action Value Parameter Concentration range (M) Reference
Kv11.1 Hs Channel blocker - 9.0 pIC50 - 5
pIC50 9.0 (IC50 1x10-9 M) [5]
Kv10.1 Hs Channel blocker - 6.7 pIC50 - 2
pIC50 6.7 [2]