1. Academic Validation
  2. Discovery of Orally Active Hydroxyethylamine Based SPPL2a Inhibitors

Discovery of Orally Active Hydroxyethylamine Based SPPL2a Inhibitors

  • ACS Med Chem Lett. 2019 May 23;10(6):887-892. doi: 10.1021/acsmedchemlett.9b00044.
Juraj Velcicky 1 Casey J N Mathison 2 Victor Nikulin 2 Daniel Pflieger 1 Robert Epple 2 Mihai Azimioara 2 Christopher Cow 2 Pierre-Yves Michellys 2 Pascal Rigollier 1 Daniel R Beisner 2 Ursula Bodendorf 1 Danilo Guerini 1 Bo Liu 2 Ben Wen 2 Samantha Zaharevitz 2 Trixi Brandl 1
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Global Discovery Chemistry, and Autoimmunity Transplantation Inflammation, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland.
  • 2 The Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, 10675 John Jay Hopkins Drive, San Diego, California 92121, United States.
Abstract

SPPL2a (Signal Peptide Peptidase Like 2a) is an intramembrane aspartyl Protease engaged in the function of B-cells and dendritic cells. Despite being an attractive target for modulation of the immune system, selective SPPL2a inhibitors are barely described in the literature. Recently, we have disclosed a selective, small molecular weight agent SPL-707 which confirmed that pharmacological inhibition of SPPL2a leads to the accumulation of its substrate CD74/p8 and as a consequence to a reduction in the number of B-cells as well as myeloid dendritic cells in mice. In this paper we describe the discovery of novel hydroxyethylamine based SPPL2a inhibitors. Starting from a rather lipophilic screening hit, several iterative optimization cycles allowed for its transformation into a highly potent and selective compound 15 (SPL-410) which inhibited in vivo CD74/p8 fragment processing in mice at 10 mg/kg oral dose.

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