Nasreddine Kanfar, Muhammet Tanc, Pascal Dumy, Claudiu T. Supuran, Sébastien Ulrich, Jean‐Yves Winum

Multivalency has impressive effects on (bio)molecular recognition, through the simultaneous presentation of multiple copies of a ligand, which can change a weak millimolar binder into a potent nanomolar one. The implementation of multivalency in enzyme inhibition is rather recent, being exemplified by few serendipitous discoveries, and hitherto relying on the random exploration of new multivalent structures as potential enzyme inhibitors. We report here a straightforward and versatile method that enables the construction of multivalent systems for the inhibition of carbonic anhydrases (CA), widespread enzymes that catalyse a fundamental biochemical reaction. Oxime and hydrazone click-type bioconjugation techniques were successfully used for the preparation of tetravalent peptide conjugates tethered with sulphonamide CA inhibitors. The enzyme inhibition assays show that multivalent effects were present with these novel compounds, but also reveal various structural effects provided by the scaffolds. The versatility of this approach may facilitate the exploration of structure-activity relationships for various types of other enzyme inhibitors.