Serine hydrolase inhibitors, which facilitate enzyme function assignment and are used to treat a range of human disorders, often act by an irreversible mechanism that involves covalent modification of the serine hydrolase catalytic nucleophile. The portion of mammalian serine hydrolases for which selective inhibitors have been developed, however, remains small. Here, we show that N-hydroxyhydantoin (NHH) carbamates are a versatile class of irreversible serine hydrolase inhibitors that can be modified on both the staying (carbamylating) and leaving (NHH) groups to optimize potency and selectivity. Synthesis of a small library of NHH carbamates and screening by competitive activity-based protein profiling furnished selective, in vivo-active inhibitors and tailored activity-based probes for multiple mammalian serine hydrolases, including palmitoyl protein thioesterase 1, mutations of which cause the human disease infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis.
