PARP-1 and PARP-2 are members of the family of poly(ADP-ribose)polymerases, which are involved in the maintenance of genomic integrity under conditions of genotoxic stimuli. The different roles of the two isoforms under pathophysiological conditions have not yet been fully clarified, and this is partially due to the lack of selective inhibitors. We report herein the synthesis and preliminary pharmacological evaluation of a large series of isoquinolinone derivatives as PARP-1/PARP-2 inhibitors. Among them, we identified the 5-benzoyloxyisoquinolin-1(2 H)-one derivative as the most selective PARP-2 inhibitor reported so far, with a PARP-2/PARP-1 selectivity index greater than 60.

Bile acids regulate nongenomic actions through the activation of TGR5, a membrane receptor that is G protein-coupled to the induction of adenylate cyclase. In this work, a training set of 43 bile acid derivatives is used to develop a molecular interaction field analysis (MFA) and a 3D-quantitative structure-activity relationship study (3D-QSAR) of TGR5 agonists. The predictive ability of the resulting model is evaluated using an external set of compounds with known TGR5 activity, and six bile acid derivatives whose unknown TGR5 activity is herein assessed with in vitro luciferase assay of cAMP formation. The results show a good predictive model and indicate a statistically relevant degree of correlation between the TGR5 activity and the molecular interaction fields produced by discrete positions of the bile acid scaffold. This information is instrumental to extend on a quantitative basis the current structure-activity relationships of bile acids as TGR5 modulators and will be fruitful to design new potent and selective agonists of the receptor.