Publications by authors named "Cassandra Gauthier"

In the course of our study on selective nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonists, a series of novel benzoxazine derivatives possessing an azole ring as the core scaffold was designed for the purpose of attenuating the partial agonistic activity of the previously reported dihydropyrrol-2-one derivatives. Screening of alternative azole rings identified 1,3-dimethyl pyrazole 6a as a lead compound with reduced partial agonistic activity. Subsequent replacement of the 1-methyl group of the pyrazole ring with larger lipophilic side chains or polar side chains targeting Arg817 and Gln776 increased MR binding activity while maintaining the agonistic response at the lower level.

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Dihydrofuran-2-one and dihydropyrrol-2-one derivatives were identified as novel, potent and selective mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonists by the structure-based drug design approach utilizing the crystal structure of MR/compound complex. Introduction of lipophilic substituents directed toward the unfilled spaces of the MR and identification of a new scaffold, dihydropyrrol-2-one ring, led to potent in vitro activity. Among the synthesized compounds, dihydropyrrol-2-one 11i showed an excellent in vitro activity (MR binding IC50=43nM) and high selectivity over closely related steroid receptors such as the androgen receptor (AR), progesterone receptor (PR) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) (>200-fold for AR and PR, 100-fold for GR).

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Mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) blockade has come into focus as a promising approach for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and congestive heart failure. In order to identify a novel class of nonsteroidal MR antagonists that exhibit significant potency and good selectivity over other steroidal hormone receptors, we designed a novel series of benzoxazin-3-one derivatives and synthesized them from 6-(7H-[1,2,4]triazolo[3,4-b][1,3,4]thiadiazin-6-yl)-2H-1,4-benzoxazin-3(4H)-one (1a), high-throughput screening (HTS) hit compound. Our design was based on a crystal structure of an MR/compound complex and a docking model.

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Synthetic modifications on a 6-furanylquinazoline scaffold to optimize the dual ErbB-1/ErbB-2 tyrosine kinase inhibition afforded consistent SAR whereby a 4-(3-fluorobenzyloxy)-3-haloanilino provided the best enzyme potency and cellular selectivity. Changes made to the 6-furanyl group had little impact on the enzyme activity, but appeared to dramatically affect the cellular efficacy. The discovery of lapatinib emerged from this work.

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