Ligand-based molecular design of 4-benzylpiperidinealkylureas and amides as CCR3 antagonists.

Asthma is an inflammatory disease of the lungs. Clinical studies suggest that eotaxin and chemokine receptor-3 (CCR3) play a primary role in the recruitment of eosinophils in allergic asthma. Development of novel and potent CCR3 antagonists could provide a novel mechanism for inhibition of this recruitment process, thereby preventing asthma. With the intention of designing new ligands with enhanced inhibitor potencies against CCR3, a 3D-QSAR CoMFA study was carried out on 41 4-benzylpiperidinealkylureas and amide derivatives. The best statistics of the developed CoMFA model were r (2) = 0.960, r(2)cv, n = 32 for the training set and r(2)pred, n = 9 for the test set. The generated 3D-QSAR contribution maps shed some light on the effects of the substitution pattern related to CCR3 antagonist activity.