Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, 19104, USA.
[structure: see text] Many peptides bind to calmodulin (CaM) in a helical conformation. Here we describe a group of synthetic inhibitors of CaM based on an arylamide scaffold that is intended to mimic smMLCK, a CaM-binding helical peptide. Compound 1 showed a K(i) value of 7.10 +/- 1.48 nM in a fluorescence polarization assay that monitors the strong association of CaM and its peptide ligand mastoparan X. ((1)H,(15)N)-HSQC NMR spectroscopy experiments suggested that 1 binds to CaM in an analogous fashion to that of smMLCK.