Development and pharmacological evaluation of a new chemical series of potent pan-ERR agonists, identification of SLU-PP-915

Estrogen-related receptors (ERR) are an orphan nuclear receptor sub-family that play a critical role in regulating gene transcription for several physiological processes including mitochondrial function, cellular energy utilization and homeostasis. They have also been implicated to play a role in several pathological conditions. Herein, we report the identification, synthesis, structure-activity relationships and pharmacological evaluation of a new chemical series of potent pan-ERR agonists. This template was designed for ERRγ starting from the known acyl hydrazide template and compounds such as agonist GSK-4716 employing a structure-based drug design approach. This led to the preparation of a series of 2,5-disubstituted thiophenes from which several were found to be potent agonists of ERRγ in cell-based co-transfection assays. Additionally, direct binding to ERRγ was established through 1H NMR protein-ligand binding experiments. Compound optimization revealed that the phenolic or aniline groups could be replaced with a boronic acid moiety, which was able to maintain activity and demonstrated improved metabolic stability in microsomal in vitro assays. Further pharmacological evaluation of these compounds showed that they had roughly equivalent agonist activity on ERR isoforms α and β representing an ERR pan-agonist profile. One potent agonist, SLU-PP-915 (10s), which contained a boronic acid moiety was profiled in gene expression assays and found to significantly upregulate the expression of ERR target genes such as peroxisome-proliferator activated receptor γ co-activators-1α, lactate dehydrogenase A, DNA damage inducible transcript 4 and pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 both in vitro and in vivo.

Targeting lipid-sensing nuclear receptors PPAR (α, γ, β/δ): HTVS and molecular docking/dynamics analysis of pharmacological ligands as potential pan-PPAR agonists

The global prevalence of obesity-related systemic disorders, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and cancers are rapidly rising. Several of these disorders involve peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) as one of the key cell signaling pathways. PPARs are nuclear receptors that play a central role in lipid metabolism and glucose homeostasis. They can activate or suppress the genes responsible for inflammation, adipogenesis, and energy balance, making them promising therapeutic targets for treating metabolic disorders. In this study, an attempt has been made to screen novel PPAR pan-agonists from the ZINC database targeting the three PPAR family of receptors (α, γ, β/δ), using molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The top scoring five ligands with strong binding affinity against all the three PPAR isoforms were eprosartan, canagliflozin, pralatrexate, sacubitril, olaparib. The ADMET analysis was performed to assess the pharmacokinetic profile of the top 5 molecules. On the basis of ADMET analysis, the top ligand was subjected to MD simulations, and compared with lanifibranor (reference PPAR pan-agonist). Comparatively, the top-scoring ligand showed better protein-ligand complex (PLC) stability with all the PPARs (α, γ, β/δ). When experimentally tested in in vitro cell culture model of NAFLD, eprosartan showed dose dependent decrease in lipid accumulation and oxidative damage. These outcomes suggest potential PPAR pan-agonist molecules for further experimental validation and pharmacological development, towards treatment of PPAR-mediated metabolic disorders.