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compounds 1a-1z. This material is available free of charge via
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author: *To whom correspondence should be
addressed. (Y.F.) Tel: 561-228-2201. E-mail: yfeng@scripps.edu.
(P.L.) Tel: 561-228-2230. E-mail: lograsso@scripps.edu.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT We thank Professors Patrick Griffin and
William R. Roush for their support. We are grateful to Dr. Derek
Duckettand Weimin Chen for p38 and JNKassays and to Dr. Michael
Chalmers for HRMS. Experimental help from Claudia Ruiz and
Shannon Clapp are also greatly appreciated.
Figure 3. Rat IOP effects of 1y (IOP decreases relative to vehicle).
Decreases at 1 and 4 h were statistically significant with p < 0.05.
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that these ROCK inhibitors have high clearance (Cl), low oral
Cmax, and very low bioavailability (F), which we believe are
desirable for topical antiglaucoma applications.
To test the effect of these novel urea-based ROCK inhi-
bitors on lowering the IOP, compound 1y was applied to rat
eyes. As shown in Figure 3, statistically significant decreases
in IOP were detected when 40 μg (2 ꢀ 20 μL drops of a 0.1%
solution) of 1y was applied to the eyes of Brown Norway rats
(n = 7/group) housed under constant low light conditions.
Initial IOP was 29 mmHg. This elevated IOP model has been
suggested to be akin to the magnitude changes seen in
glaucoma patients,19,20 making it a reasonable experimental
model reflective of clinical conditions and therefore helpful
in compound development. The maximal IOP decrease was
∼7 mmHg relative to that of vehicle from 1 to 4 h, returning
to baseline at 8 h as compared to the vehicle. These results
demonstrated that these urea-based ROCK inhibitors are
good candidates for further IOP studies. One challenge will
be to improve upon the duration of action for this class of
compounds, which will be future optimization focus driven
by ocular stability assays and insights of the inhibitors'
physicochemical properties.
In conclusion, we have developed a series of potent and
selective urea-based novel ROCK-II inhibitors. These inhibi-
tors exhibited low inhibitions over PKA, MRCKR, JNK3, p38,
and selected cytochrome P450 isoforms, had good aqueous
solubility and corneal penetration, and possessed high sys-
temic clearance and low oral bioavailability. All of these
properties are desirable for these ROCK inhibitors to be used
in the topical administration as antiglaucoma agents. Signi-
ficant IOP-lowering effects on rat eyes were observed for
compound 1y, further demonstrating the effectiveness of
these urea-based ROCK inhibitors as potential antiglaucoma
therapeutics. Future work will be directed at improving the
duration of action for these compounds so that IOP lowering
could be accomplished by aq.d dosing regimen. Once these
properties are achieved, ocular toxicology studies that exa-
mine conjunctival hyperemia will be investigated in appro-
priate species as other ROCK inhibitors have shown hyper-
emia in rabbits and monkeys after long-term dosing.9
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SUPPORTING INFORMATION AVAILABLE Details for syn-
thetic procedures, biological studies, and analytical data for
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2010 American Chemical Society
178
DOI: 10.1021/ml1000382 ACS Med. Chem. Lett. 2010, 1, 175–179
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