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A whole-animal platform to advance a clinical kinase inhibitor into new disease space

Nature Chemical Biology volume 14, pages 291–298 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Synthetic tailoring of approved drugs for new indications is often difficult, as the most appropriate targets may not be readily apparent, and therefore few roadmaps exist to guide chemistry. Here, we report a multidisciplinary approach for accessing novel target and chemical space starting from an FDA-approved kinase inhibitor. By combining chemical and genetic modifier screening with computational modeling, we identify distinct kinases that strongly enhance ('pro-targets') or limit ('anti-targets') whole-animal activity of the clinical kinase inhibitor sorafenib in a Drosophila medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) model. We demonstrate that RAF—the original intended sorafenib target—and MKNK kinases function as pharmacological liabilities because of inhibitor-induced transactivation and negative feedback, respectively. Through progressive synthetic refinement, we report a new class of 'tumor calibrated inhibitors' with unique polypharmacology and strongly improved therapeutic index in fly and human MTC xenograft models. This platform provides a rational approach to creating new high-efficacy and low-toxicity drugs.

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Figure 1: Identifying sorafenib in a drug screening using a Drosophila cancer model.
Figure 2: Generation and efficacy of TCIs.
Figure 3: Pro-targets and anti-targets for LS1-15 identified through genetic screening.
Figure 4: Developing novel TCIs APS5-16-2 and APS6-45 by reducing activity toward BRAF and Lk6/MKNK.
Figure 5: Inhibition of RAS–MAPK signaling by APS6-45.
Figure 6: The novel TCI APS6-45 displays exceptional in vivo efficacy.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Shokat, B. DeVita, and M. Birtwistle for critical comments on the manuscript. We thank members of the Cagan, Dar, and Schlessinger laboratories for important discussions. We thank P. Smibert (New York Genome Center) for ptc>dRetM955T flies, and K. Cook (Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center) for kinome mutant fly lines.M.S. was supported by The Kyoto University Young Scholars Overseas Visit Program. M.S. and R.L.C. were supported by NIH grants U54OD020353, R01-CA170495, and R01-CA109730 and DOD grant W81XWH-15-1-0111. P.M.U.U. and A.S. were supported by NIH grant R01-GM108911, and also by Department of Defense grant W81XWH-15-1-0539 (A.S.). The Dar laboratory is supported by Innovation awards from the NIH (DP2 CA186570-01) and Damon Runyon-Rachleff Foundation. A.C.D. is a Pew-Stewart Scholar in Cancer Research and Young Investigator of the Pershing-Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance. We thank OpenEye Scientific Software, Inc. for granting us access to its high-performance molecular modeling applications through its academic license program. This work was also supported by Scientific Computing at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and NCI grant P30 CA196521 to the Tisch Cancer Institute. The data and reagents that support the findings of this study, including fly lines, homology models, and compounds, are available from the corresponding authors upon request.

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Author notes

  1. Masahiro Sonoshita and Alex P Scopton: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cell, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA

    Masahiro Sonoshita, Matthew A Murray & Ross L Cagan

  2. Department of Systems Neuropharmacology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

    Masahiro Sonoshita

  3. Department of Oncological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA

    Alex P Scopton, Lisa Silber, Andres Y Maldonado, Alexander Real & Arvin C Dar

  4. Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA

    Peter M U Ung & Avner Schlessinger

  5. Department of Biomedical Sciences, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

    Matthew A Murray

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Contributions

M.S., A.P.S., R.L.C., and A.C.D. designed the research; P.M.U.U. and A.S. designed the computational analysis. M.S. designed and conducted functional studies. A.P.S. designed and conducted chemical syntheses. L.S. assisted with chemical synthesis. M.A.M. assisted with Lk6 genetic analysis. A.Y.M. and A.R. assisted with RAF anti-target analysis in cell lines. All authors analyzed data, and M.S., A.P.S., P.M.U.U., A.S., R.L.C., and A.C.D. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ross L Cagan or Arvin C Dar.

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Competing interests

M.S., A.P.S., R.L.C., and A.C.D. are inventors on a patent application submitted by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Tables 1–5, Supplementary Figures 1–11 (PDF 5470 kb)

Reporting Summary (PDF 129 kb)

Supplementary Data Set 1

In vitro inhibition of kinases by APS6-45 (10). (XLSX 53 kb)

Supplementary Data Set 2

Numbers of samples (XLSX 45 kb)

Supplementary Note 1

Synthetic procedures (PDF 9341 kb)

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Sonoshita, M., Scopton, A., Ung, P. et al. A whole-animal platform to advance a clinical kinase inhibitor into new disease space. Nat Chem Biol 14, 291–298 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.2556

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