Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Drug Design and Optimization, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China; State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201203, China.
Division of Antitumor Pharmacology, State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 201203, Shanghai, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, NO.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, PR China.
Eur J Med Chem. 2022 Aug 5;238:114482. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2022.114482. Epub 2022 May 30.
The activation of stimulator of interferon genes (STING) signaling pathways plays an important role in the innate immune response. Although several STING agonists have been developed recently, the majority of clinical CDN STING agonists are administered by intratumoral (IT) injection. Therefore, there remains a need to develop diverse non-CDN small-molecule STING agonists with systemic administration. Herein, by using a scaffold hopping strategy, we designed a series of thieno [2,3-d]imidazole derivatives as novel STING agonists. Further structure-activity relationship study and optimization led to the discovery of compound 45 as a highly potent human STING agonist with an EC value of 1.2 nM. Compound 45 was found to bind to multiple human STING isoforms and accordingly activated the downstream TBK1/IRF3 and NF-κB signaling pathways in the reporter cells bearing with different STING isoforms. The activation on STING signaling pathway was abolished in the STING knock-out cells, indicating that it is a specific STING agonist. Compound 45 significantly inhibited the tumor growth in allograft 4T1 and CT26 tumor models by systemic administration, and more significantly, 45 was able to induce tumor regression in CT26 tumor model without inducing weight loss, suggesting that compound 45 is a highly promising candidate worthy for further development.
干扰素基因刺激物 (STING) 信号通路的激活在先天免疫反应中发挥着重要作用。尽管最近已经开发出了几种 STING 激动剂,但大多数临床 CDN STING 激动剂都是通过肿瘤内 (IT) 注射给药。因此,仍然需要开发具有系统给药的多样化非 CDN 小分子 STING 激动剂。在此,我们通过使用支架跳跃策略,设计了一系列噻吩并[2,3-d]咪唑衍生物作为新型 STING 激动剂。进一步的构效关系研究和优化导致发现化合物 45 是一种具有 EC 值为 1.2 nM 的高效人 STING 激动剂。化合物 45 被发现与多种人 STING 同工型结合,并相应地激活了带有不同 STING 同工型的报告细胞中的下游 TBK1/IRF3 和 NF-κB 信号通路。在 STING 敲除细胞中,STING 信号通路的激活被消除,表明它是一种特异性 STING 激动剂。化合物 45 通过系统给药显著抑制同种异体 4T1 和 CT26 肿瘤模型中的肿瘤生长,更重要的是,45 能够在不引起体重减轻的情况下诱导 CT26 肿瘤模型中的肿瘤消退,表明化合物 45 是一种很有前途的候选药物,值得进一步开发。