The Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK) is a therapeutic target for personalized medicine in selected cancers. Despite excellent clinical responses to ALK inhibitors, most patients develop drug resistance and relapse. New compounds with alternative binding modes are needed to overcome resistant mutants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) is abnormally expressed and hyperactivated in a number of tumors and represents an ideal therapeutic target. Despite excellent clinical responses to ALK inhibition, drug resistance still represents an issue and novel compounds that overcome drug-resistant mutants are needed. We designed, synthesized, and evaluated a large series of azacarbazole inhibitors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) are heterobifunctional molecules that act as degraders. They selectively remove disease-associated proteins by hijacking the Ubiquitin-Proteasome System (UPS). Chemically, they consist of three parts: an E3 ligase ligand, a target of interest (TOI) ligand, and a linker, which connects the two moieties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Wnt signaling pathway controls multiple events during embryonic development of multicellular animals and is carcinogenic when aberrantly activated in adults. Breast cancers are dependent on Wnt pathway overactivation mostly through dysregulation of pathway component protein expression, which necessitates the search for therapeutically relevant compounds targeting them. Highly diverse microorganisms as endophytes represent an underexplored field in the therapeutic natural products research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhenazopyridine is a widely used drug against urinary tract pain. The compound has also been shown to enhance neural differentiation of pluripotent stem cells. However, its mechanism of action is not understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) are heterobifunctional degraders that specifically eliminate targeted proteins by hijacking the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). This modality has emerged as an orthogonal approach to the use of small-molecule inhibitors for knocking down classic targets and disease-related proteins classified, until now, as "undruggable." In early 2019, the first targeted protein degraders reached the clinic, drawing attention to PROTACs as one of the most appealing technology in the drug discovery landscape.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the context of dysregulated ubiquitylation, the accumulation of oncogenic substrates can lead to tumorigenesis. In particular, mutations in Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) E3 ubiquitin ligase are related to overexpression of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF-1α and HIF-2α) which is evolving into renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The classical approach of drug discovery focuses on the development of highly selective small molecules able to bind and to inhibit enzymatic active sites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman cancers are characterized by the presence of oncogene-induced DNA replication stress (DRS), making them dependent on repair pathways such as break-induced replication (BIR) for damaged DNA replication forks. To better understand BIR, we performed a targeted siRNA screen for genes whose depletion inhibited G1 to S phase progression when oncogenic cyclin E was overexpressed. RAD52, a gene dispensable for normal development in mice, was among the top hits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHere, we report on the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of 4-thiazolidinone (rhodanine) derivatives targeting Mycobacterial tuberculosis (Mtb) trans-2-enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase (InhA). Compounds having bulky aromatic substituents at position 5 and a tryptophan residue at position N-3 of the rhodanine ring were the most active against InhA, with IC values ranging from 2.7 to 30 μM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChromosomal translocations involving anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) are the driving mutations for a range of cancers and ALK is thus considered an attractive therapeutic target. We synthesized a series of functionalized benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-c]pyrimidines and benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyrazines by an aza-Graebe-Ullman reaction, followed by palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. A sequential regioselective cross-coupling route is reported for the synthesis of unsymmetrically disubstituted benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyrazines.
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