Discovery and Preclinical Pharmacology of an Oral Bromodomain and Extra-Terminal (BET) Inhibitor Using Scaffold-Hopping and Structure-Guided Drug Design.

Inhibition of the bromodomain and extra-terminal (BET) family of adaptor proteins is an attractive strategy for targeting transcriptional regulation of key oncogenes, such as c-MYC. Starting with the screening hit , a combination of structure-activity relationship and protein structure-guided drug design led to the discovery of a differently oriented carbazole with favorable binding to the tryptophan, proline, and phenylalanine (WPF) shelf conserved in the BET family. Identification of an additional lipophilic pocket and functional group optimization to optimize pharmacokinetic (PK) properties culminated in the discovery of (BMS-986158) with excellent potency in binding and functional assays.

Modulation of cofilin phosphorylation by inhibition of the Lim family kinases.

A series of aminothiazoles that are potent inhibitors of LIM kinases 1 and 2 is described. Appropriate choice of substituents led to molecules with good selectivity for either enzyme. An advanced member of the series was shown to effectively interfere with the phosphorylation of the LIM kinases substrate cofilin.

Discovery of ((S)-5-(methoxymethyl)-7-(1-methyl-1H-indol-2-yl)-2-(trifluoromethyl)-4,7-dihydropyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidin-6-yl)((S)-2-(3-methylisoxazol-5-yl)pyrrolidin-1-yl)methanone as a potent and selective I(Kur) inhibitor.

Previously disclosed dihydropyrazolopyrimidines are potent and selective blockers of I(Kur) current. A potential liability with this chemotype is the formation of a reactive metabolite which demonstrated covalent binding to protein in vitro. When substituted at the 2 or 3 position, this template yielded potent I(Kur) inhibitors, with selectivity over hERG which did not form reactive metabolites.

Trends in kinase selectivity: insights for target class-focused library screening.

A kinome-wide selectivity screen of >20000 compounds with a rich representation of many structural classes has been completed. Analysis of the selectivity patterns for each class shows that a broad spectrum of structural scaffolds can achieve specificity for many kinase families. Kinase selectivity and potency are inversely correlated, a trend that is also found in a large set of kinase functional data.

Dimethyl-diphenyl-propanamide derivatives as nonsteroidal dissociated glucocorticoid receptor agonists.

A series of 2,2-dimethyl-3,3-diphenyl-propanamides as novel glucocorticoid receptor modulators is reported. SAR exploration led to the identification of 4-hydroxyphenyl propanamide derivatives displaying good agonist activity in GR-mediated transrepression assays and reduced agonist activity in GR-mediated transactivation assays. Compounds 17 and 30 showed anti-inflammatory activity comparable to prednisolone in the rat carrageenan-induced paw edema model, with markedly decreased side effects with regard to increases in blood glucose and expression of hepatic tyrosine aminotransferase.