Capturing Biological Activity in Natural Product Fragments by Chemical Synthesis Erika A
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Angewandte Reviews Chemie International Edition:DOI:10.1002/anie.201505863 Drug Discovery German Edition:DOI:10.1002/ange.201505863 Capturing Biological Activity in Natural Product Fragments by Chemical Synthesis Erika A. Crane and Karl Gademann* Keywords: drug discovery · medicinal chemistry · natural products · organic chemistry · organic synthesis Angewandte Chemie 3882 www.angewandte.org 2016 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim Angew.Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55,3882 –3902 Angewandte Reviews Chemie Natural products have had an immense influence on science and have From the Contents directly led to the introduction of many drugs.Organic chemistry,and its unique ability to tailor natural products through synthesis,provides 1. Introduction 3883 an extraordinary approachtounlockthe full potential of natural 2. Natural Product Derived products.Inthis Review,anapproachbased on natural product Fragments in Drug Discovery 3884 derived fragments is presented that can successfully address some of the current challenges in drug discovery.These fragments often display 3. Additional Sources of Natural significantly reduced molecular weights,reduced structural Product Fragment Lead Structures 3896 complexity,areduced number of synthetic steps,while retaining or even improving key biological parameters such as potency or selec- 4. Summary and Outlook 3897 tivity.Examples from various stages of the drug development process up to the clinic are presented. In addition, this process can be leveraged by recent developments suchasgenome mining,antibody–drug conjugates,and computational approaches.All these concepts have the potential to identify the next generation of drug candidates inspired by natural products. 1. Introduction At the advent of research into natural products,organic chemistry was acrucial tool to establish the chemical structure of compounds.Asaresult, high-yielding,versatile, and specific synthetic methods were developed, which led, with the help of innovative strategies,tothe production of natural products in quantities that otherwise would be inaccessible from natural sources and finally enabled more- Figure 1. DevelopmentofHMG-CoA reductase inhibitors for the treat- thorough biological evaluation. Once organic chemists could ment of cardiovascular disease. CoA =coenzyme A, HMG = 3-hydroxy- harness the power of synthesis,they were able to modify 3-methylglutaryl. natural products with an aim to improve the selectivity, potency, stability,and pharmacokinetics.Structure–activity relationship (SAR) properties were investigated by semisyn- thesis or fragment exchange of natural products,which led to based on natural products,which underlines their importance crucial discoveries. for lead generation.[2] Aprime example in this regard has been the development Over the last decade,natural products have been expe- of statins for the treatment of cardiovascular disease,still the riencing arenaissance in drug discovery;this is based on leading cause of death worldwide.Although the first gen- anumber of reasons,inaddition to the statistics regarding eration compounds introduced into the clinic were either NCEs presented above.Many studies have revealed striking identical or closely related to anatural product (lovastatin), differences between natural and synthetic compounds,with the recognition of the crucial 3,5-dihydroxypentanoate scaf- fold and optimization by medicinal chemistry led to much [*] Dr.E.A.Crane, Prof. Dr.K.Gademann more improved derivatives,which had adramatic impact on Department of Chemistry medicine and society (Figure 1).[1] More stringent criteria of UniversityofBasel (Switzerland) “drug likeness” following Lipinskis “rule of five” and related Prof. Dr.K.Gademann ADME/pharmacokinetic criteria (ADME = adsorbtion, dis- Department of Chemistry,University of Zürich tribution, metabolism, excretion), along with the introduction Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich (Switzerland) of high-throughput screening (HTS), led to aphasing out of E-mail:[email protected] Homepage: http://www.chem.uzh.ch/research/gademann.html natural products in the lead generation process in drug discovery in the late 1990s.However,inthe past 25 years,this ORCID(s)from the author(s) for this article is/are available on the WWW under http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201505863. paradigm pendent on combinatorial chemistry for medicinal 2015 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. chemistry research has barely provided sufficient numbers of KGaA. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative innovative and effective new drugs in Pharma R&D.Inter- Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits use, estingly,half of all the new chemical entities (NCEs) distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original introduced over the last 30 years (540 out of 1073) were work is properly cited and is not used for commercialpurposes. Angew.Chem. Int.Ed. 2016, 55,3882 –3902 2016 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim 3883 Angewandte Reviews Chemie the former being less hydrophobic,having more stereogenic 2. Natural Product Derived Fragments in Drug centers,alarger fraction of sp3-hybridized carbon atoms,more Discovery Oand less N, S, and halogen atoms,fewer rotatable bonds, more fused, bridge,orspiro rings,and more solvated hydro- 2.1. Anticancer Activity gen bond donors and acceptors.[3] After all, these compounds 2.1.1. From Halichondrin BtoEribulin produced by nature are aresult of millions of years of evolutionary selection and are,hence,biologically prevali- Thepolyether macrolide halichondrin B[8] was reported in dated. All these factors have led to the validation of natural 1986 by Hirata and Uemura (Figure 2).[9] It was isolated from products as prime starting points for drug discovery. the marine sponge Halichondria okadai Kadota, which had One of the main factors often negatively associated with natural products as lead structures constitutes their limited chemical tractability.The above-mentioned complex archi- tecture,which sometimes requires lengthy synthetic approaches,often disfavors selection of natural products for further study in aresearch environment that is heavily under pressure in terms of time and financial constraints.Itisthe goal of this Review to showcase with several examples from early development to the clinic that the structural complexity of natural products can be reduced by the chemical synthesis of smaller fragments (“less is more”, “reduce to the max- imum”), while retaining (or sometimes improving) desired biological parameters such as potency or selectivity.This Review is not aimed at being comprehensive,[4] but instead should guide the reader through successful design principles and compounds that are at various stages of the development process,from lead structure identification to the clinic.The ultimate goal is shared or complemented by approaches such as “diverted total synthesis”, “chemical or molecular edit- Figure 2. Structural comparison between halichondrin Band eribulin/ ing”,[5] and “function-oriented synthesis” (FOS).[4a,6] E7389. FDA = U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These approaches all present aunique opportunity of retaining desired effects in minimized, biologically active scaffolds as aconsequence of “fragment likeness” with ahigh been collected off the coast of Japan in the Western Pacific. degree of three dimensional similarity,yet overcome the Later in 1991, Pettit et al. also isolated halichondrin Bfrom limitations of parent natural product structures,such as lack an Axinella sp.sponge,collected in Palau.[10] This marine of accessibility or viable synthetic approachability.Inaddi- macrolide showed potent activity against B16 melanoma cells 1 tion, these natural product derived fragments could add to the (IC50 = 0.093 ngmLÀ )and powerful in vivo inhibition of discovery process in the context of fragment-based drug tumor growth (T/C)[11] in mice (in up to 375%ofthe test discovery.[7] group) over the control group and increased the mean survival times for groups with murine B16 melanoma, P388 leukemia, and l1210 leukemia.[9b] Later studies revealed that halichondrin Bacts as atubulin-destabilizing agent with aslightly different mechanism of action from other antimi- totics,such as the vinca alkaloids.[8a, 12] More specifically,it inhibits tubulin polymerization and microtubule assembly, tubulin-dependent GTP hydrolysis,nucleotide exchange on Karl Gademann (born 1972) was educated Erika Crane was born in Kettering, Ohio at the ETH Zürich and Harvard University (USA) in 1985. Her research career began (PhD with Prof. Dr.Dieter Seebach, post- as an undergraduate with Prof. Robert S. doctoral studies with Prof. Dr.Eric N. Jacob- Coleman at The Ohio State University.She sen, and habilitation with Prof. Dr.Erick M. received her BS in Biochemistry from Ohio Carreira). He started his independent Northern University in 2007, and then her research at the EPFL Lausanne,before PhD in Organic Chemistry with Prof. Karl A. moving to the University of Basel in 2010 as Scheidt from Northwestern University in afull professor.Hehas received several 2012. She is currently aMarie Curie Post- awards, including the Novartis Early Career doctoral Fellow in the group of Prof. Dr.Karl Award, the National Latsis Prize, the Gademann at the University of Basel (Swit- Ruzicka Medal, and the European Young zerland), directing projects which explore the InvestigatorAward. In August 2015 he isolation, total synthesis,