Peptidyl fluoromethyl ketones occupy a pivotal role in the current scenario of synthetic chemistry, thanks to their numerous applications as inhibitors of hydrolytic enzymes. The insertion of one or more fluorine atoms adjacent to a C-terminal ketone moiety greatly modifies the physicochemical properties of the overall substrate, especially by increasing the reactivity of this functionalized carbonyl group toward nucleophiles. The main application of these peptidyl α-fluorinated ketones in medicinal chemistry relies in their ability to strongly and selectively inhibit serine and cysteine proteases. These compounds can be used as probes to study the proteolytic activity of the aforementioned proteases and to elucidate their role in the insurgence and progress on several diseases. Likewise, if the fluorinated methyl ketone moiety is suitably connected to a peptidic backbone, it may confer to the resulting structure an excellent substrate peculiarity and the possibility of being recognized by a specific subclass of human or pathogenic proteases. Therefore, peptidyl fluoromethyl ketones are also currently highly exploited for the target-based design of compounds for the treatment of topical diseases such as various types of cancer and viral infections.
Keywords: SARS-CoV Mpro; caspase; cathepsin; cysteine proteases; enzymatic inhibitors; fluorinated peptides; peptidyl fluoromethyl ketones; serine proteases.