Dual potent ALK and ROS1 inhibitors combating drug-resistant mutants: Synthesis and biological evaluation of aminopyridine-containing diarylaminopyrimidine derivatives

To identify ALK and ROS1 dual inhibitors conferring resistance to ALK secondary mutations, especially 'gatekeeper' L1196 M and the most predominant ceritinib-resistant G1202R mutations, a series of novel 2,4-diarylaminopyrimidine analogues were designed and synthesized by incorporating 2-alkoxy-6-alicyclic aminopyridinyl motifs. The biological evaluations on cellular and enzymatic assays led to identification of compound F-1, which turned out to be effective against ALK^WT, ROS1^WT, ALK^L1196M and ALK^G1202R kinases with IC₅₀ of 2.1 nM, 2.3 nM, 1.3 nM and 3.9 nM, respectively, superior to crizotinib and ceritinib. Moreover, F-1 exhibited significant cytotoxicity on ALK-addicted Karpas299, H2228, and Ba/F3 cell expressing G1202R mutant, as well as ROS1-positive HCC78 cell with IC₅₀ values ranging from 10 nM to 43 nM. Notably, F-1 was capable of suppressing phospho-ALK and its relative downstream signaling pathways, and eventually, inducing cell Apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner in Karpas-299 cell. Together, F-1 is validated as a promising ALK/ROS1 dual inhibitor great potential for G1202R ALK mutation cancers.