Design, synthesis and 3D-QSAR studies of novel 1,4-dihydropyridines as TGFβ/Smad inhibitors
作者:Daniel Längle、Viktoria Marquardt、Elena Heider、Brigita Vigante、Gunars Duburs、Iveta Luntena、Dirk Flötgen、Christopher Golz、Carsten Strohmann、Oliver Koch、Dennis Schade
DOI:10.1016/j.ejmech.2015.03.027
日期:2015.5
Targeting TGF beta/Smad signaling is an attractive strategy for several therapeutic applications given its role as a key player in many pathologies, including cancer, autoimmune diseases and fibrosis. The class of b-annelated 1,4-dihydropyridines (DHPs) represents promising novel pharmacological tools as they interfere with this pathway in a novel fashion, i.e. through induction of TGF beta receptor type II degradation. In the present work, >40 rationally designed, novel DHPs were synthesized and evaluated for TGF beta inhibition, substantially expanding the current understanding of the SAR profile. Key findings include that the 2-position tolerates a wide variety of polar functionalities, suggesting that this region could possibly be solvent-exposed within the (thus far) unknown cellular target. A structural explanation for pathway selectivity is provided based on a diverse series of 4"-substituted DHPs, including molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) calculations. Moreover, the absolute configuration for the chiral 4-position was determined by X-ray crystal analysis and revealed that the bioactive (+)-enantiomers are (R)configured. Another key objective was to establish a 3D-QSAR model which turned out to be robust (r(2) = 0.93) with a good predictive power (r(pred)(2) = 0.69). This data further reinforces the hypothesis that this type of DHPs exerts its novel TGF beta inhibitory mode of action through binding a distinct target and that unspecific activities that would derive from intrinsic properties of the ligands (e.g., lipophilicity) play a negligible role. Therefore, the present study provides a solid basis for further ligand-based design of additional analogs or DHP scaffold-derived compounds for hit-to-lead optimization, required for more comprehensive pharmacological studies in vivo. (C) 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.