Discovery and Rational Design of Natural-Product-Derived 2-Phenyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[f]chromen-3-amine Analogs as Novel and Potent Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4 (DPP-4) Inhibitors for the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes
- J Med Chem. 2016 Jul 28;59(14):6772-90. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b00505.
- 1. State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, Shanghai Key Laboratory of New Drug Design, School of Pharmacy, East China University of Science and Technology , Shanghai 200237, China.
- 2. State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Shanghai 201203, China.
Starting from the lead isodaphnetin, a natural product inhibitor of DPP-4 discovered through a target fishing docking based approach, a series of novel 2-phenyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[f]chromen-3-amine derivatives as potent DPP-4 inhibitors are rationally designed utilizing highly efficient 3D molecular similarity based scaffold hopping as well as electrostatic complementary methods. Those ingenious drug design strategies bring us approximate 7400-fold boost in potency. Compounds 22a and 24a are the most potent ones (IC50 ≈ 2.0 nM) with good pharmacokinetic profiles. Compound 22a demonstrated stable pharmacological effect. A 3 mg/kg oral dose provided >80% inhibition of DPP-4 activity within 24 h, which is comparable to the performance of the long-acting control omarigliptin. Moreover, the efficacy of 22a in improving the glucose tolerance is also comparable with omarigliptin. In this study, not only promising DPP-4 inhibitors as long acting antidiabetic that are clinically on demand are identified, but the target fish docking and medicinal chemistry strategies were successfully implemented.