Discovery of novel N-sulfonamide-tetrahydroquinolines as potent retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor γt inverse agonists for the treatment of autoimmune diseases

Small-molecule agents for treating skin diseases

Skin diseases are a class of common and frequently occurring diseases that significantly impact daily lives. Currently, the limited effective therapeutic drugs are far from meeting the clinical needs; most drugs typically only provide symptomatic relief rather than a cure. Developing small-molecule drugs with improved efficacy holds paramount importance for treating skin diseases. This review aimed to systematically introduce the pathogenesis of common skin diseases in daily life, list related drugs applied in the clinic, and summarize the clinical research status of candidate drugs and the latest research progress of candidate compounds in the drug discovery stage. Also, it statistically analyzed the number of publications and global attention trends for the involved skin diseases. This review might provide practical information for researchers engaged in dermatological drugs and further increase research attention to this disease area.

Discovery, Synthesis, and In Vitro Characterization of 2,3 Derivatives of 4,5,6,7-Tetrahydro-Benzothiophene as Potent Modulators of Retinoic Acid Receptor-Related Orphan Receptor γt

Retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor γt (RORγt) is a nuclear receptor that is expressed in a variety of tissues and is a potential drug target for the treatment of inflammatory and auto-immune diseases, metabolic diseases, and resistant cancer types. We herein report the discovery of 2,3 derivatives of 4,5,6,7-tetrahydro-benzothiophene modulators of RORγt. We also report the solubility in acidic/neutral pH, mouse/human/dog/rat microsomal stability, Caco-2, and MDR1-MDCKII permeabilities of a set of these derivatives. For this group of modulators, inverse agonism by steric clashes and push-pull mechanisms induce greater instability to protein conformation compared to agonist lock hydration. Independent of the two mechanisms, we observed a basal modulatory activity of the tested 2,3 derivatives of 4,5,6,7-tetrahydro-benzothiophene toward RORγt due to the interactions with the Cys320-Glu326 and Arg364-Phe377 hydrophilic regions. The drug discovery approach reported in the current study can be employed to discover modulators of nuclear receptors and other globular protein targets.

Modes of action insights from the crystallographic structures of retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor-γt (RORγt)

RORγt plays an important role in mediating IL-17 production and some tumor cells. It has four functional domains, of which the ligand-binding domain (LBD) is responsible for binding agonists to recruit co-activators or inverse agonists to prevent co-activator recruiting the agonists. Thus, potent ligands targeting the LBD of this protein could provide novel treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. In this perspective, we summarized and discussed various modes of action (MOA) of RORγt-ligand binding structures. The ligands can bind with RORγt at either orthosteric site or the allosteric site, and the binding modes at these two sites are different for agonists and inverse agonist. At the orthosteric site, the binding of agonist is to stabilize the H479-Y502-F506 triplet interaction network of RORγt. The binding of inverse agonist features as these four apparent ways: (1) blocking the entrance of the agonist pocket in RORγt; (2) directly breaking the H479-Y502 pair interactions; (3) destabilizing the triplet H479-Y502-F506 interaction network through perturbing the conformation of the side chain in M358 at the bottom of the binding pocket; (4) and destabilizing the triplet H479-Y502-F506 through changing the conformation of the side chain of residue W317 side chain. At the allosteric site of RORγt, the binding of inverse agonist was found recently to inhibit the activation of protein by interacting directly with H12, which results in unfolding of helix 11' and orientation of H12 to directly block cofactor peptide binding. This overview of recent advances in the RORγt structures is expected to provide a guidance of designing more potent drugs to treat RORγt-related diseases.

RORγt agonist enhances anti-PD-1 therapy by promoting monocyte-derived dendritic cells through CXCL10 in cancers

Background

The overall response rate to checkpoint blockade remains unsatisfactory, partially due to the immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment. A retinoic acid-related orphan receptor γt (RORγt) agonist (LYC-55716) is currently used in clinical trials combined with anti-PD-1, but how the Th17 cell transcription factor RORγt enhances antitumor immunity of PD-1 in the tumor microenvironment remains elusive.

Methods

The expression of mRNA was analyzed using qPCR assays. Flow cytometry was used to sort and profile cells. Cell migration was analyzed using Transwell assays. Biacore was used to determine the binding affinity to the RORγt protein. The RORγt GAL4 cell-based reporter gene assay was used to measure activity in the RORγt driven luciferase reporter gene expression.

Results

We designed a potent and selective small-molecule RORγt agonist (8-074) that shows robust antitumor efficacy in syngeneic tumor models and improves the efficacy of anti‑PD‑1 in a murine lung cancer model. RORγt agonist treatment increased intratumoral CD8+ T cells, which were correlated with CXCL10 and monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MoDCs). In addition, the RORγt agonist promoted Type 17 T cell migration by upregulating CCL20 and CCR6 expression, and Type 17 T cell tumor infiltration. CCL20 induces MoDCs migration, and CXCL10 derived from MoDCs promotes CD8+ T cell migration.

Conclusion

Our results revealed that the RORγt agonist improved the efficacy of anti-PD-1. The RORγt agonist increased the migration of MoDCs, which increased the local levels of CXCL10, thus promoting CD8+ T cell tumor infiltration. Our findings provide the mechanistic insights implicating the RORγt agonist in immunotherapy and offer a strategy for targeting the RORγt agonist to improve PD-1 antibody efficacy in cancers.

The evolution paths of some reprehensive scaffolds of RORγt modulators, a perspective from medicinal chemistry

The ligand binding domain (LBD) of retinoid-related orphan nuclear receptor γt (RORγt) has been exploited as a promising target for the new small molecule therapeutics to cure autoimmune diseases via modulating the IL-17 and IL-22 production by Th17 cells. Diverse chemical scaffolds of these small molecules have been discovered by multiple groups with methods such as high throughput screening (HTS) and virtual screening. These different scaffolds are further developed by medicinal chemists to afford lead compounds the best of which enter clinical trials. In this review, we summarize these chemical scaffolds and their evolution paths according to the groups in which they have been discovered or studied. We combine the data of the chemistry, biological assays and structural biology of each chemical scaffold, in order to afford insight to develop new RORγt modulators with higher potency, less toxicity and elucidated working mechanism.

Discovery of novel N-sulfonamide-tetrahydroisoquinolines as potent retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor γt agonists

Cancer immunotherapy has become a research hotspot in recent years. A variety of targets were developed for small molecule immuno-oncology agents, including retinoic acid-related orphan receptor gamma t (RORγt), chemokine receptor, stimulator of interferon genes (Sting), indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), toll-like receptors (TLR), etc. Among them, the retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor γt (RORγt) has gradually attracted more attention in these years. In particular, LYC-55716 (cintirorgon), a small molecule RORγt agonist developed by Lycera, has entered the phase II clinical study. In this work, starting from compound 7, compound 28 was obtained after 4 rounds of compound design, synthesis and SAR studies, which had an EC₅₀ of 0.021 ± 0.002 μM in dual Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (dual-FRET) assay and an EC₅₀ of 0.021 ± 0.002 μM in mouse Th17 cell differentiation assay. It indicated that compound 28 had excellent RORγt agonistic activity and was expected to be developed as a new type of small molecule drug for cancer immunotherapy. The molecular dynamic simulation revealed that the agonist 28 formed a strong HYF triplet intramolecular interaction to stabilize H12, which helped RORγt to form the protein-binding site and therefore made the receptor ready to recruit coactivator. When the inverse agonist s27 bound with RORγt, the steric hindrance between s27 and H479 caused the destruction of the HYF triplet, leading to the collapse of H12, thus the transcription function of RORγt was interrupted due to the failure of recruiting a coactivator molecule. The triplet HYF in RORγt and the rigidity of 28 and s27 were identified to be the structural determinants for the functional switch of RORγt.

CuI nanoparticles supported on a novel polymer-layered double hydroxide nanocomposite: an efficient heterogeneous nanocatalyst for the synthesis of bis-N-arylsulfonamides

A new type of polymer-layered double hydroxide nanocomposite bearing thiazole moieties was used to support CuI nanoparticles (NPs) as a heterogeneous catalyst for the synthesis of bis-N-arylsulfonamides. The prepared nanostructured catalyst (LDH@MPS-GMA-TZ-CuI) showed high catalytic activity, as well as excellent recyclability for the preparation of bis-N-arylsulfonamides via the chemoselective reaction of 1,3-disulfonyl chloride and nitroarenes. The superior catalytic activity of the LDH@MPS-GMA-TZ-CuI is related to the high loading of CuI NPs and favorable surface properties.

CuI NPs supported on novel polymer–LDHs nanocomposite was investigated for the synthesis of bis-N-arylsulfonamides.

Effects of N-Substituents on the Functional Activities of Naltrindole Derivatives for the δ Opioid Receptor: Synthesis and Evaluation of Sulfonamide Derivatives

We have recently reported that N-alkyl and N-acyl naltrindole (NTI) derivatives showed activities for the δ opioid receptor (DOR) ranging widely from full inverse agonists to full agonists. We newly designed sulfonamide-type NTI derivatives in order to investigate the effects of the N-substituent on the functional activities because the side chain and S=O part in the sulfonamide moiety located in spatially different positions compared with those in the alkylamine and amide moieties. Among the tested compounds, cyclopropylsulfonamide 9f (SYK-839) was the most potent full inverse agonist for the DOR, whereas phenethylsulfonamide 9e (SYK-901) showed full DOR agonist activity with moderate potency. These NTI derivatives are expected to be useful compounds for investigation of the molecular mechanism inducing these functional activities.