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Background: Multiple myeloma (MM) is the second most common hematological malignancy. This disease remains incurable as nearly all patients will relapse and become refractory to established MM therapy. Thus, new treatment option for relapsed or refractory (R/R) MM is needed, particularly those with different mechanisms of action. One such approach is to inhibit histone deacetylase (HDAC) and produce synergistic anti-myeloma activity via mechanisms of epigenetic modulations. In 2015, panobinostat was approved by US FDA as the first HDACi to treat R/R MM in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone. Bisthianostat is a novel bisthiazole-based HDACi evolved from the thiazole-thiazoline cap group in natural product Largazole (Nan et al., ACS Med Chem Lett. 2014). It is orally available and displayed inhibition against a series of MM cell lines. Here we presented preliminary in-human findings from CH-020PI study, an ongoing phase 1 study of bisthianostat. (Trial registered at ClinicalTrial.gov: NCT03618602) Methods: CH-020PI is a first-in-human study to investigate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and efficacy of bisthianostat in R/R MM patients. It is a single center, open-label, single arm, dose escalating phase I study. A standard 3+3 cohort design with 100mg as the starting dose was used to determine the maximum tolerated dose of bisthianostat. This study comprised two phases: a pharmacokinetics phase and an expansion phase. In the pharmacokinetics phase, a single-dose of bisthianostat was administered on day 1, and then multiple-dose was administered on a twice-weekly schedule for 4 consecutive weeks. Patients in the expansion phase received continuous bisthianostat twice weekly until progressive disease or unacceptable toxicities. Results: Until 30 June 2019, 8 patients were enrolled at 3 dose levels from 100 to 400mg. The median age at enrollment was 62 years (range, 51-70 years). The median number of previous lines of therapy was 5 (range, 2-6). Per protocol, all of 8 patients were evaluable for pharmacokinetics, toxicities and efficacy. In the pharmacokinetic evaluation, for all the 8 patients tested at day 1, the peak concentration of bisthianostat was reached within 2.3 hours; half life time were around 4 hours; bisthianostat uptake represented by AUClast were in good proportion to the level of dose as 100, 200 and 400mg, respectively. Similar results were observed at day 28. Any grade hematological treatment-related adverse events (AEs) occurred in 4 of 8 patients (50%), while grade 3/4 hematological AEs occurred in 2 (25%) patients. Any grade non-hematological treatment-emergent AEs were observed in 3 (37.5%) patients; no grade 3/4 non-hematological AEs were reported. No patient discontinued the treatment of bisthianostat due to AEs. Except patient 007 (200mg cohort) experienced a grade 2 nausea, no patients experienced diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. It is worthy to note that gastrointestinal toxicity is common with the use of panobinostat, a FDA-approved HDAC inhibitor. Overall single-agent efficacy was modest, and stable disease (SD) was observed in 4 (50%) patients. At the time of data cut-off for statistical analysis, no dose-limiting toxicity has been observed. Conclusions: Bisthianostat proved to be well absorbed and tolerated. It exhibited modest anti-tumor efficacy in our cohort of heavily pretreated patients with R/R MM. This phase I clinical trial is currently ongoing, and future trials should compare different doses and schedules of the combination in order to optimize the treatment tolerability and enhance its efficacy. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Twenty one chromogenic thiopeptolide substrates were designed and synthesized as the active site probes and analyzed with each S1 site of mutant residues and enzymes of wild-type MetAP1s. The preliminary enzymatic experiments indicate that cysteine 70 or 202, at either Escherichia coli or human MetAP1, played a crucial role in the methionine hydrolysis.

Methionine aminopeptidase (MetAP) catalyzes the removal of methionine from newly synthesized polypeptides. MetAP carries out this cleavage with high precision, and Met is the only natural amino acid residue at the N terminus that is accepted, although type I and type II MetAPs use two different sets of residues to form the hydrophobic S1 site. Characteristics of the S1 binding pocket in type I MetAP were investigated by systematic mutation of each of the seven S1 residues in Escherichia coli MetAP type I (EcMetAP1) and human MetAP type I (HsMetAP1). We found that Tyr-65 and Trp-221 in EcMetAP1, as well as the corresponding residues Phe-197 and Trp-352 in HsMetAP1, were essential for the hydrolysis of a thiopeptolide substrate, Met-S-Gly-Phe. Mutation of Phe-191 to Ala in HsMetAP1 caused inactivity in contrast to the full activity of EcMetAP1(Y62A), which may suggest a subtle difference between the two type I enzymes. The more striking finding is that mutation of Cys-70 in EcMetAP1 or Cys-202 in HsMetAP1 opens up the S1 pocket. The thiopeptolides Leu-S-Gly-Phe and Phe-S-Gly-Phe, with previously unacceptable Leu or Phe as the N-terminal residue, became efficient substrates of EcMetAP1(C70A) and HsMetAP1(C202A). The relaxed specificity shown in these S1 site mutants for the N-terminal residues was confirmed by hydrolysis of peptide substrates and inhibition by reaction products. The structural features at the enzyme active site will be useful information for designing specific MetAP inhibitors for therapeutic applications.

A series of pyridine-2-carboxylic acid derivatives were synthesized according to the leads from the screening, and potent inhibitors have been obtained by structural modification. They have shown submicromolar inhibition of the enzymes (for example, for 9n, IC(50) = 130 nM for EcMetAP1 and IC(50) = 380 nM for ScMetAP1). They represent small-molecule MetAP inhibitors with novel structures different from alkylating fumagillin derivatives and peptidic bestatin-based MetAP inhibitor.

A series of isoquinoline-1,3,4-trione derivatives were identified as novel and potent inhibitors of caspase-3 through structural modification of the original compound from high-throughput screening. Various analogues (2, 6, 9, 13, and 14) were synthesized and identified as caspase inhibitors, and the introduction of a 6-N-acyl group (compound 13) greatly improved their activity. Some of them showed low nanomolar potency against caspase-3 in vitro (for example, for 6k, IC50 = 40 nM) and significant protection against apoptosis in a model cell system. Additionally, compound 13f demonstrated a dose-dependent decrease in infarct volume in the transient MCA occlusion stroke model. The present small-molecule caspase-3 inhibitor with novel structures different from structures of known caspase inhibitors revealed a new direction for therapeutic strategies directed against diseases involving abnormally up-regulated apoptosis.

A trifunctional probe (binding element-photoreactive group-affinity tag) of natural product paeoniflorin was designed and synthesized based on the previous primary structure-activity relationship. This new probe is a potential tool for labeling, purification, and identification of the target proteins.

Systematic SAR studies on the thiazole ring 5-substituent of TCAT derivatives revealed that the introduction of a β-alkoxy or an amino group enhanced the inhibitory activity significantly. The present compounds are representative of specific Co(II)-MetAP1 inhibitors. Before the physiologically relevant metal ions for MetAPs are established, these small molecular compounds could be used as tools for detailed biological studies.

Systematic SAR studies on the HTS hit pyridine-2-carboxylic acid thiazol-2-ylamide (PACT) analogues revealed that the scaffold of PCAT is indispensable for the inhibition of type I MetAP. For effective inhibition of the enzyme, the most suitable position to modify is the 3-position of the pyridine ring of PCAT, and the best substituents are those containing O or N atoms connected directly with the pyridine ring. These findings provide useful information for the design and discovery of more potent inhibitors of type I MetAPs.

Systematic SAR studies on the pyridine ring 3-substituent of PCAT, an inhibitor of EcMetAP1 and ScMetAP1, revealed that 3-substituents have different selectivity for EcMetAP1 and ScMetAP1. The selective inhibitors of type I MetAP are useful tools for investigating the detailed interactions between the enzymes and their inhibitors. In addition, these findings provide useful information for the design and discovery of more potent inhibitors of type I MetAPs.

Methionine aminopeptidase (MetAP) carries out an essential posttranslational modification of nascent proteins by removing the initiator methionine and is recognized as a potential target for developing antibacterial, antifungal, and anticancer agents. We have established an Escherichia coli expression system for human type I MetAP (HsMetAP1) and characterized the full length HsMetAP1 and its N-terminal-truncated mutants HsMetAP1(Delta1-66) and HsMetAP1(Delta1-135) for hydrolysis of several thiopeptolide and peptide substrates and inhibition by a series of nonpeptidic inhibitors. Although the N-terminal extension with zinc finger motifs in HsMetAP1 is not required for enzyme activity, it has a significant impact on the interaction of the enzyme with substrates and inhibitors. In hydrolysis of the thiopeptolide substrates, a relaxation of stringent specificity for the terminal methionine was observed in the truncated mutants. However, this relaxation of specificity was not detectable in hydrolysis of tripeptide or tetrapeptide substrates. Several nonpeptidic inhibitors showed potent inhibition of the mutant HsMetAP1(Delta1-66) but exhibited only weak or no inhibition of the full length enzyme. With the recombinant HsMetAP1 available, we have identified several MetAP inhibitors with submicromolar inhibitory potencies against E. coli MetAP (EcMetAP1) that do not affect HsMetAP1. These results have demonstrated the possibility of developing MetAP inhibitors as antibacterial agents with minimum human toxicity. In addition, micromolar inhibitors of HsMetAP1 identified in this study can serve as tools for investigating the functions of HsMetAP1 in physiological and pathological processes.

Methionine aminopeptidases (MetAPs) have been studied in vitro as Co(II) enzymes, but their in vivo metal remains to be defined. While activation of Escherichia coli MetAP (EcMetAP1) by Co(II), Mn(II), and Zn(II) was detectable by a colorimetric Met–S–Gly–Phe assay, significant activation by Ni(II) was shown in a fluorescence Met-AMC assay, in addition to Co(II) and Mn(II) activation. When tested on the metal-substituted EcMetAP1s, a few inhibitors that we obtained recently from a random screening on Co-EcMetAP1 either became much weak or lost activity on Mn- or Zn-EcMetAP1, although they kept inhibitory activity on Ni-EcMetAP1. A couple of peptidic inhibitors and the methionine mimetic (3R)-amino-(2S)-hydroxyheptanoic acid (AHHpA, 6) maintained moderate activities on Co-, Mn-, Zn-, and Ni-EcMetAP1s. Our results clearly demonstrate that the metal-substitution has changed the enzyme specificity for substrates and inhibitors. Therapeutic applications call for inhibitors specific for MetAP with a physiologically relevant metal at its active site.

Background Methionine aminopeptidase is a potential target of future antibacterial and anticancer drugs. Structural analysis of complexes of the enzyme with its inhibitors provides valuable information for structure-based drug design efforts. Results Five new X-ray structures of such enzyme-inhibitor complexes were obtained. Analysis of these and other three similar structures reveals the adaptability of a surface-exposed loop bearing Y62, H63, G64 and Y65 (the YHGY loop) that is an integral part of the substrate and inhibitor binding pocket. This adaptability is important for accommodating inhibitors with variations in size. When compared with the human isozymes, this loop either becomes buried in the human type I enzyme due to an N-terminal extension that covers its position or is replaced by a unique insert in the human type II enzyme. Conclusion The adaptability of the YHGY loop in E. coli methionine aminopeptidase, and likely in other bacterial methionine aminopeptidases, enables the enzyme active pocket to accommodate inhibitors of differing size. The differences in this adaptable loop between the bacterial and human methionine aminopeptidases is a structural feature that can be exploited to design inhibitors of bacterial methionine aminopeptidases as therapeutic agents with minimal inhibition of the corresponding human enzymes.