Identification of novel B-RafV600E inhibitors employing FBDD strategy

Abstract

B-Raf kinase is the key point in a main branch of mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways and some of its mutations, such as the V600E mutation, lead to the persistent activation of ERK signaling and the trigger of severe diseases, including melanoma and other somatic cancers. Several potent drugs have been approved to treat B-Raf-related tumors, however, cases of resistance and relapse have been reported universally. Hence, differential scaffolds are in need to alleviate the scarcity of drugs and benefit the therapy of B-Raf-mutant cancers. Herein we report our recent work on the construction of novel B-Raf^V600E inhibitors employing fragment-based drug design strategy. In this research, we decomposed known inhibitors to fragments and rebuilt new candidates using these blocks according to the evaluation of their potential. Lead compounds were synthesized after selection by means of virtual screening and molecular dynamics validation. Afterwards, we tested the pharmacological efficiency of these entities both in vitro and in vivo utilizing A375 xenograft model. The results favored our rational design intention and hinted this new kind of inhibitors might be helpful in the further explorations of potent agents.

Keywords: B-Raf inhibitor; Chemotherapy; FBDD strategy; Vemurafenib: (PubChem CID: 42611257); Virtual simulation; Xenograft model.