Sulfonate Version of OHPAS Linker Has Two Distinct Pathways of Breakdown: Elimination Route Allows Para-Hydroxy-Protected Benzylsulfonate (PHP-BS) to Serve as an Alternative Self-Immolative Group

Facile synthesis of sulfinate esters from aryl iodides via direct oxidation of thioesters

A practical method to synthesize sulfinate esters from aryl iodides is disclosed. Direct oxidation of thioesters prepared by copper-catalyzed C-S formation of aryl iodides realized the efficient synthesis of sulfinate esters. Due to the good accessibility of aryl iodides, a wide variety of sulfinate esters were prepared from easily available starting materials such as carboxylic acids and anilines.

Recent advances in combretastatin A-4 codrugs for cancer therapy

CA4 is a potent microtubule polymerization inhibitor and vascular disrupting agent. However, the in vivo efficiency of CA4 is limited owing to its poor pharmacokinetics resulting from its high lipophilicity and low water solubility. To improve the water solubility, CA4 phosphate (CA4P) has been developed and shows potent antivascular and antitumor effects. CA4P had been evaluated as a vascular disrupting agent in previousc linical trials. However, it had been discontinued due to the lack of a meaningful improvement in progression-free survival and unfavorable partial response data. Codrug is a drug design approach to chemically bind two or more drugs to improve therapeutic efficiency or decrease adverse effects. This review describes the progress made over the last twenty years in developing CA4-based codrugs to improve the therapeutic profile and achieve targeted delivery to cancer tissues. It also discusses the existing problems and the developmental prospects of CA4 codrugs.

Artificial transmembrane signal transduction mediated by dynamic covalent chemistry

Reversible formation of covalent adducts between a thiol and a membrane-anchored Michael acceptor has been used to control the activation of a caged enzyme encapsulated inside vesicles. A peptide substrate and papain, caged as the mixed disulfide with methane thiol, were encapsulated inside vesicles, which contained Michael acceptors embedded in the lipid bilayer. In the absence of the Michael acceptor, addition of thiols to the external aqueous solution did not activate the enzyme to any significant extent. In the presence of the Michael acceptor, addition of benzyl thiol led to uncaging of the enzyme and hydrolysis of the peptide substrate to generate a fluorescence output signal. A charged thiol used as the input signal did not activate the enzyme. A Michael acceptor with a polar head group that cannot cross the lipid bilayer was just as effective at delivering benzyl thiol to the inner compartment of the vesicles as a non-polar Michael acceptor that can diffuse across the bilayer. The concentration dependence of the output signal suggests that the mechanism of signal transduction is based on increasing the local concentration of thiol present in the vesicles by the formation of Michael adducts. An interesting feature of this system is that enzyme activation is transient, which means that sequential addition of aliquots of thiol can be used to repeatedly generate an output signal.

Assessments of the In Vitro and In Vivo Linker Stability and Catabolic Fate for the Ortho Hydroxy-Protected Aryl Sulfate Linker by Immuno-Affinity Capture Liquid Chromatography Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometric Assay

Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) linkers play an important role in determining the safety and efficacy of ADC. The Ortho Hydroxy-Protected Aryl Sulfate (OHPAS) linker is a newly developed linker in the form of a di-aryl sulfate structure consisting of phenolic payload and self-immolative group (SIG). In this study, using two bioanalytical approaches (namely "bottom-up" and "middle-up" approaches) via the liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometric (LC-qTOF-MS) method, in vitro and in vivo linker stability experiments were conducted for the OHPAS linker. For comparison, the valine-citrulline-p-aminobenzyloxycarbonyl (VC-PABC) linker was also evaluated under the same experimental conditions. In addition, the catabolite identification experiments at the subunit intact protein level were simultaneously performed to evaluate the catabolic fate of ADCs. As a result, the OHPAS linker was stable in the in vitro mouse/human plasma as well as in vivo pharmacokinetic studies in mice, whereas the VC-PABC linker was relatively unstable in mice in vitro and in vivo. This is because the VC-PABC linker was sensitive to a hydrolytic enzyme called carboxylesterase 1c (Ces1c) in mouse plasma. In conclusion, the OHPAS linker appears to be a good linker for ADC, and further experiments would be warranted to demonstrate the efficacy and toxicity related to the OHPAS linker.