1. Academic Validation
  2. Discovery of a new class of PROTAC BRD4 degraders based on a dihydroquinazolinone derivative and lenalidomide/pomalidomide

Discovery of a new class of PROTAC BRD4 degraders based on a dihydroquinazolinone derivative and lenalidomide/pomalidomide

  • Bioorg Med Chem. 2020 Jan 1;28(1):115228. doi: 10.1016/j.bmc.2019.115228.
Fangqing Zhang 1 Zhenwei Wu 1 Pan Chen 2 Jian Zhang 1 Tao Wang 1 Jinpei Zhou 2 Huibin Zhang 3
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Center of Drug Discovery, State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, China.
  • 2 Department of Medicinal Chemistry, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, China.
  • 3 Center of Drug Discovery, State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tongjiaxiang, Nanjing 210009, China. Electronic address: zhanghb80@cpu.edu.cn.
Abstract

BRD4 has emerged as an attractive target for Anticancer therapy. However, BRD4 inhibitors treatment leads to BRD4 protein accumulation, together with the reversible nature of inhibitors binding to BRD4, which may limit the efficacy of BRD4 inhibitors. To address these problems, a protein degradation strategy based on the proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) technology has been developed to target BRD4 recently. Herein, we present our design, synthesis and biological evaluation of a new class of PROTAC BRD4 degraders, which were based on a potent dihydroquinazolinone-based BRD4 Inhibitor compound 6 and lenalidomide/pomalidomide as ligand for E3 ligase Cereblon. Gratifyingly, several compounds showed excellent inhibitory activity against BRD4, and high anti-proliferative potency against human monocyte lymphoma cell line THP-1. Especially, compound 21 (BRD4 BD1, IC50 = 41.8 nM) achieved a submicromolar IC50 value of 0.81 μM in inhibiting the growth of THP-1 cell line, and was 4 times more potent than compound 6. Moreover, the mechanism study established that 21 could effectively induce the degradation of BRD4 protein and suppression of c-Myc. All of these results suggested that 21 was an efficacious BRD4 Degrader for further investigation.

Keywords

BRD4 degraders; Dihydroquinazolinone; PROTAC; Protein degradation.

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