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In our continued effort to discover and develop best-in-class Bruton's tyrosine kinase (Btk) inhibitors for the treatment of B-cell lymphomas, rheumatoid arthritis, and systemic lupus erythematosus, we devised a series of novel tricyclic compounds that improved upon the druglike properties of our previous chemical matter. Compounds exemplified by G-744 are highly potent, selective for Btk, metabolically stable, well tolerated, and efficacious in an animal model of arthritis.

The smallest active protein-tyrosine phosphatase yet (only 16 kDa) is described here and given the name VHZ for VH1-like member Z because it belongs to the group of small Vaccinia virus VH1-related dual specific phosphatases exemplified by VHR, VHX, and VHY. Human VHZ is remarkably well conserved through evolution as it has species orthologs in frogs, fish, fly, and Archaea. The gene for VHZ, which we designate as DUSP25, is located on human chromosome 1q23.1 and consists of only two coding exons. VHZ is broadly expressed in tissues and cells, including resting blood lymphocytes, Jurkat T cells, HL-60, and RAMOS. In transfected cells, VHZ was located in the cytosol and in other cells also in the nucleoli. Endogenous VHZ showed a similar but more granular distribution. We show that VHZ is an active phosphatase and analyze its structure by computer modeling, which shows that in comparison with the 185-amino acid residue VHR, the 150-residue VHZ is a shortened version of VHR and contains the minimal set of secondary structure elements conserved in all known phosphatases from this class. The surface charge distribution of VHZ differs from that of VHR and is therefore unlikely to dephosphorylate mitogen-activated protein kinases. The remarkably high degree of conservation of VHZ through evolution may indicate a role in some ancient and fundamental physiological process.

The human DUSP15 gene encodes an uncharacterized 235-amino acid member of the subfamily of small dual specificity protein phosphatases related to the Vaccinia virus VH1 phosphatase. Similar to VHR-related MKPX (VHX) (DUSP22), the predicted protein has an N-terminal myristoylation recognition sequence, and we show here that both are indeed modified by the attachment of a myristate to Gly-2. In recognition of this relatedness to VHX, we refer to the DUSP15-encoded protein as VH1-related member Y (VHY). We report that VHY is expressed at high levels in the testis and barely detectable levels in the brain, spinal cord, and thyroid. A VHY-specific antiserum detected a protein with an apparent molecular mass of 26 kDa, and histochemical analysis showed that VHY was readily detectable in pachytene spermatocytes (midstage of meiotic division I) and round spermatids and weakly in Leydig cells (somatic cells outside of the seminiferous tubules). When expressed in 293T or NIH-3T3 cells, VHY was concentrated at the plasma membrane with some staining of vesicular structures in the Golgi region. Mutation of the myristoylation site Gly-2 abrogated membrane location. Finally, we demonstrate that VHY is an active phosphatase in vitro. We conclude that VHY is a new member of a subgroup of myristoylated VH1-like small dual specificity phosphatases.