1. Academic Validation
  2. Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK)

Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK)

  • Eur J Med Chem. 2018 May 10;151:304-314. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2018.03.071.
Chengwei Zhang 1 Xiao-Ran Han 2 Xiaobao Yang 3 Biao Jiang 3 Jing Liu 4 Yue Xiong 5 Jian Jin 6
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Center for Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY10029, United States.
  • 2 Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States.
  • 3 Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies, ShanghaiTech University, Pudong, Shanghai, 201210, China.
  • 4 Center for Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY10029, United States. Electronic address: Jing.liu@mssm.edu.
  • 5 Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States; Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States. Electronic address: yxiong@email.unc.edu.
  • 6 Center for Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY10029, United States. Electronic address: jian.jin@mssm.edu.
Abstract

Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) activation has been associated with many types of human Cancer. Significant efforts have been devoted to the development of ALK inhibitors to antagonize the kinase activity of ALK. Four ALK inhibitors have been approved by the FDA to date for treating patients with ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). However, drug resistance has been observed in the majority of patients treated with these inhibitors. New therapeutic strategies (e.g., compounds with novel mechanisms of action) are needed to overcome the drug resistance issue. The emerging PROTAC (Proteolysis Targeting Chimera) technology has been successfully applied to selective degradation of multiple protein targets, but not ALK. Since ALK protein levels are not important for viability in mammals, ALK PROTACs could lead to novel therapeutics with minimal toxicity. Here we report the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel PROTACs (degraders) of ALK. MS4077 (5) and MS4078 (6) potently decreased cellular levels of oncogenic active ALK fusion proteins in a concentration- and time-dependent manner in SU-DHL-1 lymphoma and NCI-H2228 lung Cancer cells. The ALK protein degradation induced by compounds 5 and 6 was Cereblon and Proteasome dependent. In addition, compounds 5 and 6 potently inhibited proliferation of SU-DHL-1 cells. Furthermore, compound 6 displayed good plasma exposure in a mouse pharmacokinetic study, thus is suitable for in vivo efficacy studies. We also developed MS4748 (7) and MS4740 (8), very close analogs of 5 and 6 respectively, which are incapable to degrade the ALK fusion proteins, as negative controls. Compounds 5-8 are valuable chemical tools for investigating effects of ALK pharmacological degradation. Our study paved the way for developing the next generation of ALK PROTACs.

Keywords

Anaplastic lymphoma kinase; Lung cancer; Lymphoma; PROTAC; Protein degrader.

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