The escape phase, which is a part of a more general process of cancer immunoediting, is known for progressive growth of tumor cells, which contributes to tumor visibility and manifestation of clinical symptoms. The tumor microenvironment, which among other things is generated as a consequence of cytoplasmatic enzyme indolamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1), significantly contributes to the development of the escape phase. IDO1 is a heme-containing dioxygenase and catalyzes the first (and at the same time rate-limiting step) of metabolism of L-tryptophane to L-kynurenine, which leads to the formation of toxic kynurenine metabolites. As a result, the immune response is inhibited and further on the malignant tumor tissue is spread. Accordingly, IDO1 is an interesting target in cancer immunotherapy. Unfortunately, the development of IDO1 inhibitors is associated with many complications, e.g. novel compounds show inhibitory activity through unspecific mechanisms. Despite these problems, a large number of IDO1 inhibitors are undergoing clinical trials in the last years and some of them have shown promising clinical outcomes.
As a part of the Master's thesis, using five-step synthetic route, we synthesized nine final compounds (inhibitors) on the basis of a known IDO1 inhibitor 3-(4-fluorophenyl)isoxazolo[5,4-d]pyrimidin-4(5H)-on, which was previously discovered by virtual screening. Their identity and purity was confirmed by analytic techniques and their inhibitory activity on the enzyme was evaluated by a biochemical assay. In the last steps of the synthesis we had to cope with very low yields obtained after the reactions, which made the analytic and biochemical evalution of final compounds more difficult. Even though all final compounds have very similar structures, it was proved that three of them (23, 28 and 29) are sufficiently potent inhibitors to determine their IC50 values.
The most potent inhibitory activity with an IC50 value of 10,9 µM was determined for methyl-4-(2-oxo-3-(tiophene-2-yl)isoxazolo[5,4-d]pyrimidin-5(4H)-il)acetamido)benzoate (29), which was also docked into the enzyme's active site for prediction of potential interactions. Compound 29 represents a new chemical class of inhibitors and an important starting point for further research and development of more potent novel IDO1 inhibitors as potential anticancer drugs.
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