Novel Liver-targeted conjugates of Glycogen Phosphorylase Inhibitor PSN-357 for the Treatment of Diabetes: Design, Synthesis, Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacological Evaluations

PSN-357, an effective glycogen Phosphorylase (GP) inhibitor for the treatment for type 2 diabetics, is hampered in its clinical use by the poor selectivity between the GP isoforms in liver and in skeletal muscle. In this study, by the introduction of cholic acid, 9 novel potent and liver-targeted conjugates of PSN-357 were obtained. Among these conjugates, conjugate 6 exhibited slight GP inhibitory activity (IC₅₀ = 31.17 μM), good cellular efficacy (IC₅₀ = 13.39 μM) and suitable stability under various conditions. The distribution and pharmacokinetic studies revealed that conjugate 6 could redistribute from plasma to liver resulting in a considerable higher exposure of PSN-357 metabolizing from 6 in liver (AUC_liver/AUC_plasma ratio was 18.74) vs that of PSN-357 (AUC_liver/AUC_plasma ratio was 10.06). In the in vivo animal study of hypoglycemia under the same dose of 50 mg/kg, conjugate 6 exhibited a small but significant hypoglycemic effects in longer-acting manners, that the hypoglycemic effects of 6 is somewhat weaker than PSN-357 from administration up to 6 h, and then became higher than PSN-357 for the rest time of the test. Those results indicate that the liver-targeted glycogen Phosphorylase Inhibitor may hold utility in the treatment of type 2 diabetes.