Fragments vs DHX8: towards a chemical probe

RNA helicases present an intriguing but challenging opportunity for drug discovery. Their importance for cell growth makes them attractive cancer targets. But to function, they must undergo considerable conformational changes, and this dynamism makes it difficult to find high-affinity inhibitors. In a new open-access J. Med. Chem. paper, Gurdip Bhalay, Rob van Montfort, and collaborators at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), Merck KGaA, and Proteros describe their efforts against DHX8.

 

DHX8 is one of 14 or so DEAH-box helicases and helps release mRNA from spliceosomes. Previous research had found it to be important for the cellular stress response as well as malignant cell transformation and progression, and siRNA-knockdown experiments showed that cancer cells were particularly dependent on DHX8 activity. Thus, the researchers set out to find a chemical probe.

 

The 2000-fragment ICR library was screened (at 300 µM) against the helicase domain of DHX8 using both surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and thermal shift assay (TSA). In addition, the full-length yeast homolog of DHX8, Prp22, was also screened by SPR to look for fragments that might bind outside the helicase domain. The TSA screen yielded 18 hits, while the SPR screen yielded 91, of which 63 also bound Prp22, while another 17 fragments bound Prp22 more strongly than the helicase domain of DHX8.

 

Eight-point dose response curves were collected for the hits, and 10/18 TSA hits gave a concentration-dependent response on both DHX8 and Prp22, along with 42/108 SPR hits, while another 5 SPR hits only bound to Prp22. Surprisingly, there were only 2 hits in common between the TSA and SPR hits; the researchers note the importance of using multiple orthogonal screens.

 

Next, the confirmed hits were tested in three ligand-observed NMR assays: CPMG, WaterLOGSY, and STD. Reassuringly, 39 were active in all three assays. Competition experiments suggested that the fragments did not bind in the ATP-binding site, but some of them were competitive with RNA.

 

Crystallography was attempted on several of the fragments, and compound 1 yielded a structure revealing that it did in fact bind in the “RNA-binding tunnel” of the helicase domain, with the carboxylic acid making contacts similar to a backbone phosphate. Although the dissociation constant (assessed by SPR) was > 1 mM, compound 1 was active in an ATP-hydrolysis assay and an RNA fluorescence anisotropy (FA) binding assay with triple-digit micromolar activity (values for the FA assays are shown here).

 

Much of the paper is devoted to the optimization of this fragment, which, true to the reputation of the helicase family, turned out to be difficult. Testing related compounds led to compound 6, with low micromolar activity, but despite extensive efforts it was impossible to improve the affinity much further. Thus, the researchers reexamined their larger compound collection for other similar compounds and identified compound 24. Although weaker than compound 6, a crystal structure revealed that the phenyl ring binds deeper into the RNA-binding tunnel, providing new opportunities for fragment growing. Structure-based design led to compound 34, with low micromolar activity, and further optimization ultimately led to compound 53, with submicromolar activity.

 

The mechanism of DHX8 requires the RNA-binding tunnel to open and close right where compound 53 sits, so its inhibitory activity can be attributed to blocking this motion. In addition to biochemical activity, the molecule also showed low micromolar activity in a cellular target engagement assay. However, no other cellular data are reported.

 

This is a textbook example of fragment finding and growing against a difficult target. The fact that the researchers returned to fragments after the initial series reached an affinity plateau is a useful reminder that it is all too easy to get stuck in a local minimum, and you may need to take a step back to make progress. Although compound 53 is just on the edge of what may be considered a chemical probe in terms of potency, it is the first reported nanomolar inhibitor of DHX8. The researchers also mention a second series derived from a different fragment, and it will be interesting to see if this yields even better molecules.

Differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF) for covalent ligands

Differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF), also known as a thermal shift assay, is one of the most common techniques for fragment screening according to the most recent methods poll on Practical Fragments. This popularity is in part due to the simplicity of the assay: just mix your protein with a dye such as SYPRO Orange, which binds to the hydrophobic core of unfolded proteins, heat the solution in a PCR thermocycler, and measure the change in fluorescence. Ligands that bind specifically to proteins often stabilize them, increasing the melting temperature. As we noted in 2017, some companies even use DSF to assess the ligandability of new targets.

 

Most of the focus on DSF has involved non-covalent ligands. But the approach also works for covalent ligands, according to a new open-access paper in the British Journal of Pharmacology by Nir London and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

 

The researchers acknowledge that they are not the first to explore DSF on covalent ligands; last year we discussed a screen of 47 covalent fragments against 47 kinases, and just last month we highlighted a DSF screen that identified an unexpectedly covalent fragment hit.

 

The new paper starts by performing DSF on five drug targets (BTK, the G12C mutant of KRAS, SARS-CoV-2 MPro, Pin1, and Keap1), each with well-characterized covalent ligands (for example, ibrutinib, acalabrutinib, and evobrutinib for BTK, sotorasib and adagrasib for KRAS^G12C, etc.) For four of the proteins they also tested non-covalent or covalent reversible ligands. Almost all of the ligands increased thermal stability of the bound protein, and covalent ligands tended to have a greater effect.

 

In addition to testing specific ligands, the researchers also performed DSF experiments on the five proteins with three reactive, non-specific covalent ligands: iodoacetamide, ethyl 2-(bromomethyl)acrylate, and a chloroacetamide called RA13. Intact protein mass spectrometry confirmed that these molecules gave essentially complete modification of the five proteins, in some cases at multiple sites.

 

In contrast to the specific ligands, the reactive alkylators tended either to have marginal effects on the melting temperatures of the proteins or to actually destabilize the proteins, sometimes dramatically. That said, there were cases of stabilization. The researchers suggest that “reactive, non-specific, irreversible binders may act as destabilizers, since they form an irreversible covalent bond regardless of molecular recognition, which may result in deformation of the protein if the rest of the binder cannot be accommodated near the modified amino acid.”

 

To assess how well DSF works for covalent fragments more generally, the researchers acquired 2612 acrylamides from Enamine and screened them (each at 8 µM in pools of 5) against Keap1 for 24 hours at 4 ºC. Mass spectrometry showed that just over 100 gave at least 50% modification, which a back of the envelope calculation suggests a covalent efficiency roughly 1 M^-1s^-1. Next, 84 compounds with differing degrees of modification were tested by DSF, and, in contrast to the kinase paper we discussed last year, there was a correlation between extent of modification and either stabilization or destabilization of the protein. But consistent with the specific ligands discussed above, the more reactive fragments (as assessed by glutathione reactivity) were the only ones that caused destabilization.

 

The authors conclude by proposing “DSF as a fast and complementary follow-up approach for electrophilic fragment screening, to prioritize productive and selective covalent binders over promiscuous reactive fragments.” This seems reasonable – what do you think?

Fragments vs KEAP1: deconstruction and merging

One of the more challenging protein-protein interactions targeted by drug hunters is the interface between the transcription factor NRF2 and its repressor KEAP1. This is part of the cellular defense against reactive oxygen species; increasing NRF2 activity may be useful for treating a variety of diseases. Unfortunately, the binding site on KEAP1 that interacts with NRF2 is large and has a predilection for carboxylic acids. Thus, many of the molecules reported as inhibitors tend not to be druglike. Anders Bach (University of Copenhagen) and a multinational team of collaborators sought to do better, and have just published some of their journey in J. Med. Chem.

 

The researchers had previously tested 19 reported small-molecule KEAP1 inhibitors, of which only nine confirmed. (This is a salutary reminder to take any individual publication with a large grain of salt.) The nine fell into six chemical series (two shown below), and the researchers decided to fragment some of these molecules into 77 fragments. The fragments were then tested in four assays: fluorescence polarization (FP), a thermal shift assay (TSA), saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR, and surface plasmon resonance (SPR).

 

Primary hit rates were generally high, from 25%-64%, but long-time readers will not be surprised that the overlap was not great: no fragments hit in all four assays, and only eight hit in three. As the researchers point out, this could reflect differences in sensitivity, conditions (from 3-8% DMSO and from 0.5 to 8 mM fragment), and different types of false positives and false negatives. Interestingly, and in contrast to previous work, overlap was good between STD NMR and SPR.

 

Crystal structures of seven hits were solved bound to the protein, and compounds 4c and 1m (from different precursor molecules) were merged to provide compound 8, with low micromolar affinity. Compound 8 was the subject of considerable medicinal chemistry, with five different vectors chosen for growing. Despite being structurally enabled, the researchers struggled; changes that improved affinity in one context did not do so in another. After considerable effort, the researchers obtained compound 77o, with mid-nanomolar activity.

 

Compound 77o is stable in human plasma and mouse liver microsomes. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly given the two carboxylic acids, it has poor permeability. Indeed, a fragment-derived KEAP1 inhibitor we described previously has only a single carboxylic acid, as does precursor compound 7. As the researchers themselves acknowledge, “the physicochemical properties of our compounds are not favorable for membrane permeability.”

 

Nonetheless, this paper is a lovely example of fragment-based deconstruction reconstruction (FBDR) and is well worth studying for the thorough descriptions of fragment screening in orthogonal assays and structure-based design. Another lesson may be that despite considerable effort, the final molecule is far from a chemical probe, let alone a drug. Perhaps some targets truly are undruggable. Or maybe – as for other seemingly undruggable targets – a change in strategy is needed.

Fragment growing and merging: an inverse agonist of RORγt2

The nuclear receptor transcription factor RORγt2 is involved in the differentiation of Th17 cells, and is thus a target for inflammatory diseases. The protein contains a large, hydrophobic ligand binding site, and as a result most known inverse agonists have less than ideal physicochemical properties. In a paper recently published in J. Med. Chem., Samuel Hintermann and colleagues at Novartis have taken a fragment-based approach.

The researchers screened a library of 1408 fragments using a “differential static light scattering (DSLS)” assay, which is a type of thermal shift assay that measures denaturation and aggregation of the protein. A few dozen molecules that stabilized RORγt2 were tested in dose-response curves prior to crystallization trials, ultimately yielding 13 structures. Compound 1 was particularly interesting because it binds in the center of the cavity, providing growth vectors in two directions. It also makes a couple hydrogen bonds with the protein, as opposed to purely hydrophobic interactions.

Growing from the ethoxy position quickly led to improvements in affinity. To avoid the possibility of toxic iminoquinone metabolites, the researchers replaced the central phenyl ring with a pyridine, resulting in the low micromolar inverse agonist compound 8.

To further improve affinity, the researchers merged an element from a previously reported GlaxoSmithKline molecule (compound 2) onto compound 8, resulting in the potent compound 9, which was characterized in a battery of assays.

The crystal structure of compound 9 bound to the protein revealed that the core fragment moiety binds in the same manner as the original compound 1, though the added benzyl ether binds in a subpocket that had not previously been observed to bind ligands.

Kinetic studies using a reporter displacement assay revealed that compound 9 has both a slow on-rate as well as a slow off-rate, consistent with the fact that it is fully enclosed by the protein. The researchers performed molecular dynamics simulations to try to determine how the ligand could enter or leave, which suggested large conformational changes in a flexible region of the protein. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) showed that the binding of compound 9 is enthalpically driven, with an unfavorable entropy. Although interpreting thermodynamics is fraught, this result makes intuitive sense given the hydrogen bonds formed and the fact that the molecule seems to rigidify the protein.

Biophysics is interesting, but of course biology is what was driving the program. Compound 9 is potent in a variety of cell assays and is also selective for RORγt2 over other nuclear hormone receptors. However, it is also mostly insoluble, and although it did show efficacy in a rodent inflammation model, plasma concentrations of compound 9 were highly variable between individual rats, which the authors attribute to poor physicochemical properties.

This is a nice application of fragment growing and merging that demonstrates how difficult it is to find useful leads for lipophilic sites: even with favorable biochemistry and biophysics, the pharmacokinetics are a slog. That said, others have made progress against similarly hydrophobic targets, so it will be fun to watch this story progress.

Assessing ligandability by thermal scanning

Ligandability refers to the ability to find small-molecule leads against a target. A protein might be ligandable but not druggable if, for example, potent inhibitors of the target do not affect a disease state. But knowing in advance whether a target is ligandable can be useful, both to decide whether to embark on a campaign and to plan the resources it will likely require. Fragment screens by NMR have been shown to be good predictors of ligandability, but not everyone has access to this technology. Computational methods (such as FTMap) are also useful, but require a structure of the target. In a recent paper in J. Med. Chem., Stefan Geschwindner and colleagues at AstraZeneca describe high-throughput thermal scanning (HTTS) for assessing ligandability.

Thermal scanning (alternately called, as the researchers note, thermal shift, differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF), or thermofluor) relies on the preferential binding of a fluorescent dye to protein that is heat-denatured. Since ligands generally stabilize a protein against denaturation, an increase in melting temperature (Tm) is taken as an indication of binding. The assays can be plate-based and thus very fast.

The researchers chose 16 diverse targets (mostly enzymes) and screened their 763-ligandability fragment set (described here) at 1 mM by HTTS. Hits were defined as compounds that increased  thermal stability at least 3-fold above the standard deviation of controls. Targets were then categorized as follows:

Low ligandability: hit rate < 1.5%

Medium ligandability: hit rate between 1.5 and 4.5%

High ligandability: hit rate > 4.5%

Nine targets ranked low, and all of these failed high throughput screening (HTS), while 5 out of the 7 targets ranked medium or high by HTTS yielded useful HTS hits. Of course, failure in an HTS does not preclude target advancement by other means – including FBLD. Ultimately all but three targets (including all of those ranked medium or high and 6 of 9 ranked low) went on to enter hit-to-lead optimization programs.

Encouragingly, HTTS and NMR agreed perfectly for low and high ligandability targets, but NMR assigned three targets as medium where HTTS assigned them as low. The researchers thus set out to increase the sensitivity of HTTS.

It turns out that entropically-driven binders tend to cause greater thermal shifts than enthalpically driven binders. The observation that most fragments bind largely enthalpically, and with low affinity too, makes them particularly challenging to detect. To try to shift the balance, the researchers repeated the HTTS assay for three of the low-scoring targets in D₂O instead of H₂O, which enhances entropic interactions at the expense of enthalpic interactions. Indeed, all three targets showed enhanced hit rates, and two moved from low to medium ligandability.

Another way to improve sensitivity of a thermal shift assay is to add urea, which destabilizes proteins by lowering the unfolding enthalpy. Adding non-denaturing amounts of urea (0.8 to 2.4 M concentration) to the three low-scoring targets above did indeed increase the hit rate for two of them.

One interesting tidbit is the observation that particularly stable targets, with unfolding temperatures >70 °C, tend to produce lower hit rates in HTTS than less stable targets. This could account for the very different experiences people have had with the technique.

This is a nice paper, and the approach may be worth implementing, as the researchers note has already happened at AstraZeneca. Although HTTS is unlikely to ever be as robust as SPR, NMR, or crystallography, it is hard to beat the low cost and high speed.

Native mass spectrometry revisited

Native electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) is one of the less-commonly used fragment finding methods. The technique relies on gently ionizing a protein-fragment complex without causing denaturation; bound fragments reveal themselves as shifts in mass. The technique is truly label-free, and can use very small amounts of protein and fragments. In practice the technique can work really well, reasonably well, or quite poorly. Two new papers shed light on factors that influence success.

The first paper, by Kevin Pagel (Freie Universität Berlin), Benno Kuropka (Bayer), and collaborators, examines four different cancer-related proteins. Let me say up-front that that the paper is remiss in not disclosing the chemical structures of any of the fragments, so in a very real sense this work is not reproducible. It is a shame the editors of ChemMedChem were not more demanding. That said, there is some useful information here.

Most of the focus is on the protein MTH1, screened at 10 µM concentration with 100 µM of each fragment. This was not a naïve screen; the fragments were previously identified from a thermal shift assay (TSA): 24 stabilized the protein, 4 destabilized it, and 5 had no effect. Remarkably, all of the fragments showed complexes in ESI-MS ranging between 6 – 66%, even those that had no effect in the TSA! Choosing an (admittedly arbitrary) 20% cutoff weeded out most of the false positives: 16 of the 24 stabilizers passed, while none of the destabilizers or neutral molecules did.

The best hit by ESI-MS also gave the strongest thermal shift, and a titration curve revealed an impressive dissociation constant of 1.7 µM. However, even at high concentrations of fragment the amount of bound complex did not exceed 70%, meaning that interpretation of single-dose experiments (for example, from a primary screen) could be problematic.

The results were similar for the protein KDM5B: 8 of 9 stabilizing fragments were hits by ESI-MS, as were two of 7 destabilizing fragments. Note that fragments that destabilize proteins can still be tight binders, as illustrated here.

For two additional proteins, however, ESI-MS was disappointing. For BRPF1, ESI-MS didn’t find any of the 11 hits from TSA, while for UHRF1 it found only a single hit – though this hit was not one of the 10 stabilizers identified by TSA. One could argue that the TSA hits were false positives were it not for the fact that, in the case of BRPF1, 6 of them were confirmed by crystallography.

The second paper, in Angew. Chem., comes from Chris Abell and coworkers at the University of Cambridge, and focuses on the protein EthR, a potential target for tuberculosis that we’ve previously discussed.

EthR binds to DNA, so rather than look for direct binding of fragments to EthR the researchers instead looked for fragments that could disrupt the EthR-DNA complex. A small library of 73 fragments was tested (at 0.5 mM each, in 2% DMSO), yielding 8 hits. The same library was screened under the same conditions using differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF), yielding 7 hits, 4 of which had also been identified using ESI-MS. All 11 of these molecules were then tested under the same conditions in an SPR assay to see if they could disrupt the interaction between EthR and chip-bound DNA. The 7 best SPR hits were all fragments that had been identified by ESI-MS. Moreover, two fragments – one identified solely by ESI-MS and one identified by both ESI-MS and DSF – were characterized bound to EthR crystallographically, and these represent new chemotypes for this target.

So what are we to make of all this? In common with other techniques, ESI-MS works well for some targets and less well for others. The problem is that it is not clear what distinguishes the two classes of targets. If you have access to the equipment and expertise you might consider adding ESI-MS to your screening cascade. But if you can only afford to buy one instrument for fragment screening, you’d probably be better off investing in NMR or SPR.

Twelfth Annual Fragment-based Drug Discovery Meeting

CHI’s Drug Discovery Chemistry meeting took place over four days last week in San Diego. This was easily the largest one yet, with eight tracks, two one-day symposia, and nearly 700 attendees; the fragment track alone had around 140 registrants. On the plus side, there was always at least one talk of interest at any time. On the minus side, there were often two or more going simultaneously, necessitating tough choices. As in previous years I won’t attempt to be comprehensive but will instead cover some broad themes in the order they might be encountered in a drug discovery program.

You need good chemical matter to start a fragment screen, and there were several nice talks on library design. Jonathan Baell (Monash University) gave a plenary keynote on the always entertaining topic of PAINS. Although there are some 480 PAINS subtypes, 16 of these accounted for 58% of the hits in the original paper, suggesting that these are the ones to particularly avoid. But it is always important to be evidenced-based: some of the rarer PAINS filters may tag innocent compounds, while other bad actors won’t be picked up. As Jonathan wrote at the top of several slides, “don’t turn your brain off.”

Ashley Adams described the reconstruction of AbbVie's fragment libraries. AbbVie was early to the field, and Ashley described how they incorporated lessons learned over the past two decades. This included adding more compounds with mid-range Fsp³ values, which, perhaps surprisingly, seemed to give more potent compounds. A 1000-member library of very small (MW < 200) compounds was also constructed for more sensitive but lower throughput biophysical screens. One interesting design factor was to consider whether fragments had potential sites for selective C-H activation to facilitate fragment-to-lead chemistry.

Tim Schuhmann (Novartis) described an even more “three-dimensional” library based on natural products and fragments. Thus far the library is just 330 compounds and has produced a very low hit rate – just 12 hits across 9 targets – but even a single good hit can be enough to start a program.

Many talks focused on fragment-finding methods, old and new. We’ve written previously about the increasingly popular technique of microscale thermophoresis (MST), and Tom Mander (Domainex) described a success story on the lysine methyltransferase G9a. When pressed, however, he said it did not work as well on other targets, and several attendees said they had success in only a quarter to a third of targets. MST appears to be very sensitive to protein quality and post-translational modifications, but it can rapidly weed out aggregators. (On the subject of aggregators, Jon Blevitt (Janssen) described a molecule that formed aggregates even in the presence of 0.01% Triton X-100.)

Another controversial fragment-finding technique is the thermal shift assay, but Mary Harner gave a robust defense of the method and said that it is routinely used at BMS. She has seen a good correlation between thermal shift and biochemical assays, and indeed sometimes outliers were traced to problems with the biochemical assay. The method was even used in a mechanistic study to characterize a compound that could bind to a protein in the presence of substrate but not in the presence of a substrate analog found in a disease state. Compounds that stabilized a protein could often be crystallized, while destabilizers usually could not, and in one project several strongly destabilizing compounds turned out to be contaminated with zinc.

Crystallography continues to advance, due in part to improvements in automation described by Anthony Bradley (Diamond Light Source and the University of Oxford): their high-throughput crystallography platform has generated about 1000 fragment hits on more than 30 targets. Very high concentrations of fragments are useful; Diamond routinely uses 500 mM with up to 50% DMSO, though this obviously requires robust crystals.

Among newer methods, Chris Parker (Scripps) discussed fragment screening in cells, while Joshua Wand (U. Penn) described nanoscale encapsulated proteins, in which single protein molecules could be captured in reverse micelles, thereby increasing the sensitivity in NMR assays and allowing normally aggregation-prone proteins to be studied. And Jaime Arenas (Nanotech Biomachines) described a graphene-based electronic sensor to detect ligand interactions with unlabeled GPCRs in native cell membranes. Unlike SPR the technique is mass-independent, and although current throughput is low, it will be fun to watch this develop.

We recently discussed the impracticality of using enthalpy measurements in drug discovery, and this was driven home by Ying Wang (AbbVie). Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) measurements suggested low micromolar binding affinity for a mixture of four diastereomers that, when tested in a displacement (TR-FRET) assay, showed low nanomolar activity. Once the mixture was resolved into pure compounds the values agreed, highlighting how sensitive ITC is to sample purity.

If thermodynamics is proving to be less useful for lead optimization, kinetics appears to be more so. Pelin Ayaz (D.E. Shaw) described two Bayer CDK kinase inhibitors having either a bromine or trifluoromethyl substitution. They had similar biochemical affinities and the bromine-containing molecule had better pharmacokinetics, yet the trifluoromethyl-containing molecule performed better in xenograft studies. This was ultimately traced to a slower off-rate for the triflouromethyl-substituted compound.

The conference was not lacking for success stories, including MetAP2 and MKK3 (both described by Derek Cole, Takeda), LigA (Dominic Tisi, Astex), RNA-dependent RNA polymerase from influenza (Seth Cohen, UCSD), and KDM4C (Magdalena Korczynska, UCSF). Several new disclosures will be covered at Practical Fragments once they are published.

But these successes should not breed complacency: at a round table chaired by Rod Hubbard (Vernalis and University of York) the topic turned to remaining challenges (or opportunities). Chief among these was advancing fragments in the absence of structure. Multiprotein complexes came up, as did costs in terms of time and resources that can be required even for conventional targets. Results from different screening methods often conflict, and choosing the best fragments both in a library and among hits is not always obvious. Finally, chemically modifying fragments can be surprisingly difficult, despite their small size.

I could go on much longer but in the interest of space I’ll stop here. Please add your thoughts, and mark your calendars for next year, when DDC returns to San Diego from April 2-6!

CYP121 revisited: fragmentation approaches

Three years ago we highlighted work out of Chris Abell’s lab at the University of Cambridge targeting CYP121, an important enzyme for the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Two new papers from his group discuss progress on this target using conceptually similar approaches.

A previous fragment screen had identified some very weak fragments, and merging had led to low-micromolar compound 2 – the starting point for a (free access) J. Med. Chem. paper by researchers at Cambridge, the University of Manchester, the Francis Crick Institute, and São Paulo State University. The researchers used a “retrofragmentation” or deconstruction approach: systematically dissecting the molecule into component fragments (such as compounds 4 and 5) to see which bits were most important. Group efficiency analyses revealed that the two lower aromatic rings were important, while the upper one was much less so.

Crystallography revealed that compound 2 did not make direct interactions with the active-site heme molecule in CYP121, so the researchers sought to create some by growing out from compound 4. This led to a nice increase in affinity (compound 19a). Incorporating the other ring led to compound 25a, with sub-micromolar affinity as measured by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). Of course, heme is common to every CYP – including those found in humans – raising the question of selectivity. Happily, compound 25a turned out to be reasonably selective for CYP121 compared with a panel of Mtb and human enzymes.

There’s lots more in this (30 page!) paper, including extensive SAR supported by crystallography, ITC, native mass spectrometry, and an interesting spectroscopic binding assay. But unfortunately, the compounds are not active in a cellular assay, and the researchers are trying to figure out why.

The second (open access) paper also takes a deconstruction approach, this time starting from the substrate cYW. Fragmentation of this and related cyclic dipeptide substrates into amino acid derivatives and analogs led to the testing of 65 commercial compounds in a thermal shift assay, resulting in seven hits that increased the denaturation temperature by more than 1 °C. Compound 1a was the most stabilizing, and a spectroscopic assay suggested interaction with the heme group.

The spectroscopic assay also revealed a high micromolar affinity for the fragment. Attempts to improve this ultimately led to compound 31, with comparable affinity as cYW but with improved ligand efficiency. The thioester could be replaced with only a modest loss in potency, and interestingly the stereochemistry of these molecules did not seem to make a difference. Compound 31 was also reasonably selective for CYP121 in a panel of other CYPs.

Both papers cover lots of ground. Reading some publications you can be lulled into thinking that FBLD is an easy progression of increasingly potent compounds. These examples are useful reminders that many compounds turn out to be dead ends, and that even potent and selective molecules may not have the desired biological effects. Sometimes doing everything right can still leave you short of the goal – at least for a while.

Disrupting constitutive protein-protein interfaces

Protein-protein disruptions are notoriously difficult because the interfaces between proteins tend to be large and flat, with few of the deep pockets where small molecules prefer to bind. That's not to say they're impossible: the second approved fragment-derived drug targets a protein-protein interaction. This interaction, as with most others studied (see here, here, and here, for example), is transient: two proteins come together to transmit a biological signal, then dissociate. But many proteins form constitutive dimers or oligomers, and these tend to be even more challenging to disrupt. This is the class of targets discussed in a paper just published in J. Am. Chem. Soc.

Wei-Guang Seetoh and Chris Abell (University of Cambridge) were interested in the protein kinase CK2, a potential anti-cancer target. The enzyme is a tetramer containing two identical catalytic subunits (CK2α) and two identical regulatory units (CK2β). Previous experiments had shown that introducing mutations into CK2β that disrupted dimer formation decreased enzymatic activity and increased protein degradation. Would it be possible to find small molecules that did this?

Chris Abell is a major proponent of the thermal shift assay, in which a protein is heated in the presence of a dye whose fluorescence changes when it binds to denatured protein. The way this assay is normally conducted, small molecules are added, and if they bind to the protein they stabilize it, thus increasing the melting temperature (see here for an interesting counterexample).For oligomeric proteins, one might expect that anything that disrupts the oligomers would destabilize the proteins, thus lowering the thermal stability, and indeed this turned out to be the case in a couple model systems. Thus, the researchers screened dimeric CK2β against 800 fragments, each at the (very high) concentration of 5 mM. No fragments significantly increased the melting temperature, but 60 decreased the stability by at least 1.5 °C.

Best practice for finding fragments includes using multiple orthogonal methods, so all 60 hits were tested (at 2 mM each) in three different ligand-detected NMR assays: STD, waterLOGSY, and CPMG. Impressively, 40 of these showed binding in all three assays. There was no correlation between the binding affinity and the magnitude of thermal denaturation, which is not surprising because the thermal shift incorporates not just the enthalpy change of ligand binding but also the enthalpy change of protein unfolding. Thus, as the researchers note, “the extent of thermal destabilization cannot be used as a measure of its binding affinity.”

Next, all 40 confirmed fragments were tested at 2 mM to see whether they caused CK2β dimer dissociation, as assessed by native state electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). 18 fragments shifted the equilibrium to monomeric protein, though interestingly no protein-fragment complexes could be observed. These 18 fragments also decreased dimerization in an isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) assay.

There is still a long way to go: all the fragments are very weak, and preliminary SAR studies were unable to find analogs with significantly improved activity. Indeed, it is unclear where the fragments bind, or whether the binding site(s) are even ligandable. Still, the combined use of biophysical techniques on a particularly gnarly target make this an interesting study on the frontiers of molecular recognition.

Fragments deliver a chemical probe for Family VIII bromodomains

Today’s post continues the theme of July as bromodomain month at Practical Fragments. The 61 human bromodomains (found in 46 proteins – some proteins have more than one) have been divided into eight families based on their sequences. Family VIII contains ten members, some of which are involved in keeping stem cells from differentiating. Two papers describe chemical probes that target some or most members of this family.

The first paper, which actually came out last year in Science Advances, is from a multinational group including Thomas Günther (Universität Freiburg), Stefan Knapp and Susanne Müller (both University of Oxford) and collaborators at Pfizer. The researchers started by screening libraries of acetyl lysine mimetics that had yielded inhibitors against other bromodomains. These came up empty; even promiscuous bromodomain inhibitors failed to hit Family VIII members. As is so often the case, when all else fails, the researchers turned to fragments. A thermal shift assay revealed that salicylic acid – the polypharmacological metabolite of aspirin – binds to the bromodomain PB1(5). Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) confirmed this result, providing a dissociation constant of 250 µM.

The researchers were also able to obtain a crystal structure of PB1(5) bound to salicylic acid in the acetyl lysine binding site common to all bromodomains, with the carbonyl making the usual hydrogen bond with a conserved asparagine. But whereas most other bromodomain binders make a water-mediated bridge to a conserved tyrosine, the phenol makes a direct hydrogen bond. The benzene ring also binds deeper in the pocket, displacing four highly conserved water molecules.

The subsequent medicinal chemistry optimization of this fragment is described in a paper published earlier this year in J. Med. Chem. by Dafydd Owen and colleagues at Pfizer, along with collaborators at the University of Oxford, DiscoveRx, Eurofins, the University of Massachusetts Worcester, and Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. Testing commercial and proprietary analogs of salicylic acid quickly revealed that uncharged enamides such as compound 2 were more effective at stabilizing PB1(5) against thermal denaturation than salicylic acid, and crystallography confirmed a similar binding mode.

Two rounds of library synthesis were conducted, first with 130 amines and then with 320 amines, with physicochemical properties of target compounds chosen in advance such that cLogP would range between 1 and 4. Seven family VIII bromodomains were screened in parallel, and compounds were identified with differing specificities. Some of the compounds were unstable in water, but introducing steric hindrance around the amine improved stability and led to compounds such as PFI-3. This is potent against the family VIII bromodomains PB1(5), SMARCA2A, and SMARCA4 and did not hit at least 40 other bromodomains tested. A related compound is active against more of the family VIII bromodomains while still maintaining good selectivity against other bromodomains.

Both of these probes are able to bind to family VIII bromodomains in cells and were used to explore the proteins’ biological roles. A variety of cellular phenotypic assays showed minimal changes, and the compounds do not appear to be toxic. They did attenuate myocyte or adipocyte differentiation, while PFI-3 caused embryonic stem cells to differentiate. One gets the impression that the researchers were hoping for more profound effects, but that’s why you make chemical probes in the first place. Whether or not these compounds will ultimately prove useful as drug leads, they should help to unravel some fiendishly complex biology.

Fragments deliver a chemical probe for CBP and EP300

As we mentioned last week, July is bromodomain month at Practical Fragments. Today we’ll start by looking at two closely related bromodomains, one found in cyclic-AMP response element binding protein (CBP) and another from adenoviral E1A binding protein of 300 kDa (EP300). Both proteins have been implicated in a variety of diseases, particularly cancer, so a chemical probe would be very valuable.

Alexander Taylor and collaborators at Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Genentech, and WuXi, describe such a probe in a recent paper in ACS Med. Chem. Lett. The researchers screened about 2000 fragments in a thermal shift assay using 0.8 mM of each fragment. Compounds that increased the melting temperature of the CBP bromodomain by at least 1° C were validated first by time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer and then by ¹⁵N HSQC NMR, ITC, and X-ray crystallography. Compound 1 was one of the more attractive hits, in particular because it was considerably less active against BRD4, whose inhibition causes all sorts of changes to cells.

Crystallography of the racemic compound clearly showed that only one of the enantiomers bound, and this was confirmed in functional assays when both enantiomers were tested separately. The active enantiomer makes some of the same interactions typical of all bromodomains with the natural ligand (N-acetylated lysine). Fragment growing was attempted off the aromatic ring, and although several vectors were tolerated, most decreased selectivity against BRD4. However, close examination of the structures revealed a promising vector that led to compound 14, with good selectivity against BRD4. Further optimization ultimately led to CPI-637, with low nanomolar activity against both CBP and EP300 as well as good cell-based activity. Crystallography revealed that this compound binds in a similar manner as the initial fragment.

The selectivity of CPI-637 against other bromodomains is also good (> 700-fold less active against BRD4), though it does hit BRD9 with sub-micromolar activity. Just as with the initial fragment, the opposite enantiomer of CPI-637 is considerably less active. Although no pharmacokinetic data are provided, at the very least this should be a useful probe for cell-based studies.

Switching gears to another aspect of CBP, the multidomain protein p300/CBP-associated factor (PCAF) has a bromodomain that may bind to CBP, though the biology is not entirely clear. PCAF is known to bind an acetylated HIV protein, and has been proposed as a target for AIDS. Obviously this is another opportunity for a chemical probe! The first steps are reported in a paper by Stefan Knapp and collaborators at Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Oxford, Leiden University, ZoBio, and University of Cambridge, published in J. Med. Chem (and open-access).

The researchers screened two separate fragment libraries using either thermal shift assays (at 1 mM fragment) or TINS. Hits were confirmed using SPR and crystallography, resulting in seven structures. As expected, all the fragments bound at the site where N-acetylated lysine normally binds. The PCAF bromodomain appears to be quite rigid, with little movement in structures with the different bound fragments. A few elaborated molecules were tested, with the best showing low micromolar affinity as assessed by ITC; crystal structures with these molecules are also reported and deposited in the protein data bank. It will be fun to see whether their potency can be improved.

We’ll have another post on bromodomains next week, but first stay tuned later this week for an updated list of fragment-derived drugs that have entered the clinic.

Eleventh Annual Fragment-based Drug Discovery Meeting

The first major fragment event of 2016, CHI’s Drug Discovery Chemistry, was held last week in San Diego. FBDD was the main focus of one track, and fragments played starring roles in several of the others as well, including inflammation, protein-protein interactions, and epigenetics. Also, for the first time this year the event included a one-day symposium on biophysical approaches, which also included plenty of fragments.

In agreement with our polls, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) received at least a mention in most of the talks. John Quinn (Genentech) gave an excellent overview of the technique, packed with lots of practical advice. At Genentech fragments are screened at 0.5 mM in 1% DMSO at 10°C using gradient injection, which permits calculation of affinities and ligand efficiencies directly from the primary screen. Confirmation of SPR hits in NMR is an impressive 80%. A key source of potential error in calculating affinities is rebinding, in which a fragment dissociates from one receptor and rebinds to another. That problem can be reduced by increasing the flow rate and minimizing the amount of protein immobilized to the surface. Doing so also lowers the signal and necessitates greater sensitivity, but happily the baseline noise has decreased by 10-fold in the past decade.

Some talks focused on using SPR for less conventional applications. Paul Belcher (GE) described using the Biacore S200 to measure fragments binding to wild-type GPCRs. In some cases this provided different hits than those detected against thermally stabilized GPCRs. And Phillip Schwartz (Takeda) described using SPR to characterize extremely potent covalent inhibitors for which standard enzymatic assays can produce misleading results. These screens require exotic conditions to regenerate the chip, so it helps that the SensiQ instrument has particularly durable plumbing.

In theory, SPR can be used to measure the thermodynamics of binding by running samples at different temperatures, but John Quinn pointed out that enthalpic interactions dominate for most fragments, so the extra effort may not be worthwhile. Several years ago many researchers felt that enthalpically driven binders might be more selective or generally superior. Today more people are realizing that thermodynamics is not quite so simple, and Ben Davis (Vernalis) may have put the nail in the coffin by showing that, for a set of 22 compounds, enthalpy and entropy of binding could vary wildly simply by changing the buffer from HEPES to PBS! (Free energy of binding remained the same with either buffer.)

Thermal shift assays (TSA or DSF) continued to be controversial, with Ben finding lack of agreement between the magnitude of the shift and affinity, though there was a correlation with success in crystal trials. In contrast, Mary Harner (BMS) reported good agreement between thermal shift and affinity. She also found that it seemed to work better when the fragments bound in deep pockets than when they bound closer to the surface. However, Rumin Zhang (Merck), who has tested more than 200 proteins using TSA, mentioned that some HCV protease inhibitors could be detected despite the shallow active site. Rumin also pointed out that a low response could indicate poor quality protein – if most of the protein is unfolded it might be fine for biochemical assays but not for TSA. Negative thermal shifts are common and, according to Rumin, sometimes lead to structures, though others found this to be the case less often.

What to do when assays don’t agree was the subject of lively discussion. Mary Harner noted that out of 19 targets screened in the past two years at BMS using NMR, SPR, and TSA, 45% of the BMS library hit in at least 1 assay. However, 68% of hits showed up in only a single assay. Retesting these did lead to more agreement, but even many of the hits that didn’t confirm in other assays ultimately led to leads. All techniques are subject to false negatives and false positives, so lack of agreement shouldn’t necessarily be cause for alarm. Indeed, Ben noted that multiple different soaking conditions often need to be attempted to obtain crystal structures of bound fragments.

Crystallography in general is benefiting from dramatic advances in automation. Jose Marquez described the fully automated system at the EMBL Grenoble Outstation, which is open to academic collaborators. And Radek Nowak (Structural Genomics Consortium, Oxford) discussed the automated crystal harvesting at the Diamond Light Source, which is capable of handling 200 crystals per hour. He also revealed a program called PANDAA (to be released soon) that speeds up the analysis of crystallographic data.

Crystallography was used as a primary screen against KEAP1, as discussed by Tom Davies (Astex). A subset of 330 of the most soluble fragments was tested in pools of four, which revealed several hot spots on the protein. Interestingly, an in-house computational screen had not identified all of these hot spots, though Adrian Whitty (Boston University) noted that they could be detected with FTMap. The fragments themselves bound exceptionally weakly, but intensive optimization led to a low nanomolar inhibitor.

Another case in which extremely weak fragments turned out to be useful was described by Matthias Frech (EMD Serono). A full HTS failed to find any confirmed hits against cyclophilin D, but screening by SPR produced 168 fragments, of which six were characterized crystallographically. Although these were all mM, with unimpressive ligand efficiencies, they could be linked or merged with known ligands to produce multiple leads – a process which took roughly one year from the beginning of the screen. Matthias noted that sometimes fragment efforts are started too late to make a difference, and that it is essential to not be dogmatic.

Huifen Chen discussed Genentech's MAP4K4 program. Of 2361 fragments screened by SPR, 225 had affinities better than 2 mM. Crystallography was tough, so docking was used instead, with 17 fragments pursued intensively for six months, ultimately leading to two lead series (see here and here), though one required bold changes to the core. This program is a nice reminder of why having multiple fragment hits can be useful, as the other 15 fragments didn’t pan out.

Finally, George Doherty (AbbVie) gave a good overview of the program behind recently approved venetoclax, which involved hundreds of scientists over two decades. He also described intensive medicinal chemistry which led to a second generation compound, ABT-731, with improved solubility and oral bioavailability.

We missed Teddy at this meeting, and there is plenty more to discuss, so please add your comments. If you did not attend, several excellent events are still coming up this year. And mark your calendar for 2017, when CHI returns to San Diego April 24-26.

Fragment finding smackdown: 2015 edition

Our current poll (right-hand side of page) asks about NMR. But of course, there are lots of other ways to find fragments, and the question often arises as to which ones are best. This is the subject of a recent paper in ChemMedChem by Gerhard Klebe and collaborators at Philipps University Marburg, Proteros, NovAliX, Boehringer Ingelheim, and NanoTemper.

Long-time readers will recall that the Klebe group assembled a library of 361 fragments, some of which violated strict “rule of 3” guidelines. These were screened in a high-concentration functional assay against the model aspartic protease endothiapepsin, resulting in 55 hits, of which 11 provided crystal structures. The authors wondered how other techniques would fare. In the new paper, they retested their entire library against the same protein using a reporter displacement assay (RDA), STD-NMR, a thermal shift assay (TSA), native electrospray mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), and microscale electrophoresis (MST). To the extent possible they tried to use similar conditions (such as pH) for the different assays, though the fragment concentrations ranged from a low of 0.1 mM (for ESI-MS) to a high of 2.5 mM (for TSA), while protein concentrations ranged between 4 nM (for the biochemical assay) to 20 µM (for ESI-MS).

All told, 239 fragments hit in at least one assay – a whopping hit rate of 66%. Actually, the number is even higher since, for various reasons, not all fragments could be tested in all assays. And yet, not a single fragment came up in all of the assays! Overall agreement was in fact quite disappointing, with most methods having overlaps of less than 50%, and often below 30%. This is in contrast to a study from a different group highlighted a couple years ago.

What’s going on? One clue might be the solubilities, which were experimentally measured for all library members. In general, hits tended to be more soluble than the library as a whole, emphasizing the importance of this parameter not just for follow-up studies but for identification of fragments in the first place.

Another possibility is that some fragments bind outside the enzyme active site, and thus would not be picked up in a biochemical assay or the RDA. Some evidence for this is provided by follow-up NMR studies in which hits were competed with ritonavir, which binds in the active site. Ritonavir-competitive binders shared greater overlap with biochemical and RDA hits, while there was more overlap between ritnovair-uncompetitive binders and hits from methods such as ESI-MS, TSA, and MST that rely solely on binding. (This could also explain similar observations made earlier this year.)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many of the 11 hits that had previously yielded crystal structures would have been identified had they been tested in other methods? Here the numbers vary significantly, from 27% for ESI-MS and MST to 100% for NMR, though these statistics should be taken with a grain of salt since – for example – only 7 of the 11 crystallographically-confirmed hits could actually be tested in the NMR assay. Also, it is possible that some hits from these methods might have generated new crystal structures for fragments not identified in the initial biochemical screen.

One admirable feature of this paper is that the authors provide all their data, including structures and measured solubility numbers for each component of their library. This should provide an excellent dataset for a modeler to use in benchmarking computational methods.

All in all this is a thorough and important analysis and a sobering reminder that, even if a fragment doesn’t hit in orthogonal assays, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not a useful starting point. On the other hand, artifacts are everywhere, and paranoia is often justified. The art is deciding which hits are worth pursuing – and how.

EthR revisited: fragment growing this time

A few months ago we described a fragment linking approach against the protein EthR, a transcriptional repressor from Mycobacterium tubercuolosis responsible for resistance to the second-line tuberculosis drug ethionamide. In a new paper in J. Med. Chem., a different team led by Benoit Deprez and Nicolas Willand (Université Lille Nord de France and Institut Pasteur) describe work on the same target using fragment growing and merging.

The researchers started with a fragment (compound 3) they had previously made as part of an in-situ click chemistry effort. A thermal shift assay revealed that this compound marginally stabilized EthR. More convincingly, it displayed mid-micromolar inhibition of EthR binding to DNA, with respectable ligand efficiency.

Interestingly, when compound 3 was cocrystallized with the protein, it bound at two different locations within the binding site. (In the work we highlighted previously this year, a different fragment also bound at two sites, and in that case the researchers linked fragments bound at each site to create a tighter binder.) In the current paper, the researchers focused on fragment growing.

Compound 3 is a sulfonamide that can be readily constructed from amines and sulfonyl chlorides, and the researchers started by constructing a 976-member virtual library of larger sulfonamides. These were then screened in silico against the protein, and many of the top-scoring hits resulted from an isopentylamine building block (such as compound 4). Ten of these were made and tested, and indeed, compounds 4 and 8 were more effective than compound 3 at stabilizing EthR in the thermal shift assay. Moreover, not only did compound 8 show low micromolar activity in the DNA-binding assay (IC₅₀ = 4.9 µM), it also showed low micromolar activity in sensitizing M. tubercuolosis to ethionamide (EC₅₀ = 5.7 µM).

Crystallography of compound 8 bound to EthR revealed that the isopentyl substituent was binding in a hydrophobic part of the pocket, and adding a few fluorine atoms (compound 17) gave a satisfying increase in potency as well as solubility. Replacing the sulfonamide with an amide (compound 19) further improved potency.

The researchers also made a couple compounds in which a second copy of compound 3 was merged with compound 19, and although this approach did produce a compound with nearly the same potency, it was also larger and less soluble.

This team has been pursuing EthR for some time, and they were able to use information from previous structures both in the computational screening as well as in the optimization. In that sense, this is an example of fragment-assisted drug discovery. It is also another nice example of fragment work in academia.

Fragments vs Dengue virus helicase and methyltransferase

Dengue fever is a disease whose nastiness is hinted at by its common name, “breakbone fever”. The eponymous virus relies on two viral proteins, a helicase (Hel) and a methyltransferase (MTase), for replication. In a recent paper in Antiviral Research, Karine Barral and coworkers at Aix-Marseille Université use fragment-based methods to tackle both of these proteins.

The researchers used the 500 compound Maybridge fragment library (2009 edition) and performed a biophysical cascade, starting with a thermal shift assay at 2 mM of each fragment. Hits were defined as fragments that stabilized the protein by at least 0.5 °C; there were 36 hits against Hel and 32 against MTase, with 6 in common.

Both Hel and MTase are amenable to crystallography, so the hits against each protein were soaked into crystals. Unfortunately, none of these yielded structures for Hel. Critics of thermal shift assays could argue that this is yet another example of false positives, a possibility the researchers consider. That said, 11 of the fragments inhibited Hel by at least 25% in biochemical assays (at 2 mM fragment), though none inhibited greater than 50%.

The results against MTase were more salubrious: 7 fragments produced structures, for a success rate of 22%. Interestingly, these fragments bound to 4 distinct sites on the protein. Two different enzymatic assays were used to test all the fragment hits, and many of them showed activity in one or both. A few fragments – including 5 of those characterized crystallographically – were sufficiently active that IC₅₀ values could be determined, though these were mostly millimolar.

My one quibble is that the authors state that “to our knowledge, only one example of random FBS has been conducted on an RNA virus target.” This ignores some beautiful work from both Roche and Astex on Hepatitis C, another virus that carries its genome as RNA. Still, it is fair to say that fragments could play a larger role in tackling infectious diseases.

At the last CHI FBDD conference, Rod Hubbard noted that, as more academics enter the fragment field, we will see more publications describing fragment hits against tough targets. The next steps – taking a fragment to a nascent lead – are often harder to resource in an academic environment. Still, it’s good to see these initial studies. At the very least, they go some way to addressing the question of whether the targets are ligandable.

Ninth Annual Fragment-based Drug Discovery Meeting, Part 2

The first major fragment event of 2014 drew around 500 people to San Diego last week. This is part of CHI’s three-day Drug Discovery Chemistry conference, and although the official FBDD track was only one of six, it is a testimony to the vitality of the field that fragments made appearances in most of the other sessions. With 17 talks in the FBDD track alone this post will not attempt to be comprehensive; Teddy has already shared some impressions here.

Jim Wells (UCSF) gave a magisterial keynote address that emphasized how useful fragments can be for tackling difficult targets such as protein-protein interactions (PPIs). In fact, many of the talks in the protein-protein interaction track relied on fragments. That’s not to say it’s easy. Rod Hubbard (University of York and Vernalis) emphasized that advancing fragments to leads against such targets can take a long time and often requires patience that strains the management of many organizations. Fragment hits against PPIs usually have lower ligand efficiencies (0.23-0.25 kcal/mol/HA if you’re lucky), and improving potency can be a bear. Rhian Holvey (University of Cambridge) presented a nice example of how she was able to find millimolar fragments that bind to the anti-mitotic target TPX2, potentially blocking its interaction with importin-alpha, but even structural information was not enough to get to potent inhibitors.

G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) were thought to be unsuitable for fragments until recently, but both Iwan de Esch (whose work has been profiled several times, including here and here) and Jan Steyaert (Vrije University) presented success stories. In fact, Jan has only been working with the Maybridge fragment library for a few months, but has found agonists, antagonists, and inverse agonists for several GPCRs.

Another example of a difficult target is lactate dehydrogenase A (LDHA). We’ve previously highlighted cases where fragment linking was used to get to nanomolar binders (here and here); Mark Elban (GlaxoSmithKline) presented an example of fragment growing and using information from a high-throughput screen (HTS) to get to nanomolar binders. Mark also discussed a particularly disturbing false positive: HTS had generated dozens of confirmed hits spanning 7 chemotypes, but upon closer inspection it turned out that all of them came from a single vendor, and that – unreported by the vendor – they were all oxalate salts. Oxalate is a low micromolar inhibitor of LDHA, and is invisible in proton NMR, so I’m sure this was not fun to track down.

Ben Davis (Vernalis) also presented great examples of false positives and false negatives, and how to avoid them. In particular, the WaterLOGSY NMR technique is great for weeding out aggregators when run in the absence of protein.

A common theme throughout the conference was the integration of fragments with other methods, such as HTS. Nick Skelton (Genentech) actually titled his presentation “Fragment vs. HTS hits: does it have to be a competition?” Kate Ashton (Amgen) discussed how using information from a fragment screen helped solve pharmacokinetic issues with an HTS-derived hit. And Steven Taylor (Boehringer Ingelheim) presented a similar example (also covered here) of using fragments to fix a more advanced lead. Steven noted that fragment-based methods are now fully integrated into the organization, which marks a significant change from Sandy Farmer’s presentation at this meeting four years ago.

The roundtables are great opportunities to swap ideas and get feedback; Teddy already mentioned the excellent roundtable he chaired, but I wanted to also give a shout-out to one organized by Derek Cole (Takeda) focused on "practical aspects of fragment screening." We recently discussed discussed fragments that destabilize proteins in thermal shift assays, and it turns out that folks from both the Broad Institute and Takeda have also crystallographically characterized such fragments. There was the sense that either stabilizers or destabilizers should be considered hits, though the latter were less likely to lead to crystal structures than the former.

Finally, on the subject of library design, Damian Young (Baylor College of Medicine) described using diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS) to generate more “three-dimensional” fragments. He is planning to build a library of roughly 3000 fragments which he hopes to make widely available to the community; these should help answer the question of whether the third dimension is really an advantage.

The importance of library design was also emphasized by Valerio Berdini (Astex); they are currently on their seventh generation library, about 40% of which is non-commercial, and half of whose members have been solved in one or more of 6000+ crystal structures. Relevant to the rule of three, Astex is moving to ever smaller fragments, with an average of 12.6 non-hydrogen atoms, ClogP = 0.6, and MW = 179. Indeed, despite assertions that PPIs may require larger fragments, Rod noted that at Vernalis the average fragments hits against PPIs are only slightly larger (MW = 202 vs 189 against all targets) and more lipophilic (ClogP 1.2 vs 0.8).

CHI has already announced that next year’s meeting will be held in San Diego from April 21-23. As it will be the ten year anniversary, they’re planning something big, so put it on your calendar now!