High-throughput screening campaign identifies a small molecule agonist of the relaxin family peptide receptor 4.

Acta Pharmacol Sin

The National Center for Drug Screening and CAS Key Laboratory of Receptor Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai, 201203, China.

Published: October 2020

Relaxin/insulin-like family peptide receptor 4 (RXFP4) is a class A G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), and insulin-like peptide 5 (INSL5) is its endogenous ligand. Although the precise physiological role of INSL5/RXFP4 remains elusive, a number of studies have suggested it to be a potential therapeutic target for obesity and other metabolic disorders. Since selective agonists of RXFP4 are scarcely available and peptidic analogs of INSL5 are hard to make, we conducted a high-throughput screening campaign against 52,000 synthetic and natural compounds targeting RXFP4. Of the 109 initial hits discovered, only 3 compounds were confirmed in secondary screening, with JK0621-D008 displaying the best agonism at human RXFP4. Its S-configuration stereoisomer (JK1) was subsequently isolated and validated by a series of bioassays, demonstrating a consistent agonistic effect in cells overexpressing RXFP4. This scaffold may provide a valuable tool to further explore the biological functions of RXFP4.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7608467PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41401-020-0390-xDOI Listing

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