1. Academic Validation
  2. Discovery of highly potent, selective, and brain-penetrable leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) small molecule inhibitors

Discovery of highly potent, selective, and brain-penetrable leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) small molecule inhibitors

  • J Med Chem. 2012 Nov 26;55(22):9416-33. doi: 10.1021/jm301020q.
Anthony A Estrada 1 Xingrong Liu Charles Baker-Glenn Alan Beresford Daniel J Burdick Mark Chambers Bryan K Chan Huifen Chen Xiao Ding Antonio G DiPasquale Sara L Dominguez Jennafer Dotson Jason Drummond Michael Flagella Sean Flynn Reina Fuji Andrew Gill Janet Gunzner-Toste Seth F Harris Timothy P Heffron Tracy Kleinheinz Donna W Lee Claire E Le Pichon Joseph P Lyssikatos Andrew D Medhurst John G Moffat Susmith Mukund Kevin Nash Kimberly Scearce-Levie Zejuan Sheng Daniel G Shore Thuy Tran Naimisha Trivedi Shumei Wang Shuo Zhang Xiaolin Zhang Guiling Zhao Haitao Zhu Zachary K Sweeney
Affiliations

Affiliation

  • 1 Department of Discovery Chemistry, Genentech, Inc., 1 DNA Way, South San Francisco, California 94080, USA. anthony@gene.com
Abstract

There is a high demand for potent, selective, and brain-penetrant small molecule inhibitors of leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) to test whether inhibition of LRRK2 kinase activity is a potentially viable treatment option for Parkinson's disease patients. Herein we disclose the use of property and structure-based drug design for the optimization of highly ligand efficient aminopyrimidine lead compounds. High throughput in vivo rodent cassette pharmacokinetic studies enabled rapid validation of in vitro-in vivo correlations. Guided by this data, optimal design parameters were established. Effective incorporation of these guidelines into our molecular design process resulted in the discovery of small molecule inhibitors such as GNE-7915 (18) and 19, which possess an ideal balance of LRRK2 cellular potency, broad kinase selectivity, metabolic stability, and brain penetration across multiple species. Advancement of GNE-7915 into rodent and higher species toxicity studies enabled risk assessment for early development.

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