Boronic
acids have attracted the attention of synthetic and medicinal
chemists due to boron’s ability to modulate enzyme function.
Recently, we demonstrated that boron-containing amphoteric building
blocks facilitate the discovery of bioactive aminoboronic acids. Herein,
we have augmented this capability with a de novo library design and
a virtual screening platform modified for covalent ligands. This technique
has allowed us to rapidly design and identify a series of α-aminoboronic
acids as the first inhibitors of human ClpXP, which is responsible
for the degradation of misfolded proteins.