ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters
Letter
Agency has only approved it for the treatment of infection with
T. b. gambiense.7
substituted analogues 25a and 25b, using methyl crotonate (for
R1 methyl) and methyl methacrylate (for R2 methyl).
The situation is not as promising in South America, where
Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis) affects 6−7 million
people. Among them, 10% will develop digestive and neuro-
logical deteriorations and 30% cardiac alterations, which may
lead to progressive heart failure and sudden cardiac arrest.8 The
current drugs used to treat Chagas disease have associated
toxicity and have variable efficacy in the chronic phase of the
disease.9,10 Chagas disease transmission is confined to Latin
America, but migration of chronic patients to other continents
contributes to the urgent need for control and treatment.5
In both forms of trypanosomiasis, the diseases evolve in two
stages. The first stage is rarely diagnosed due to nonspecific
symptoms, and the second stage is most debilitating and not
easily treated.5,11 With no immediate prospect for vaccines,
chemotherapy is the only way to fight these trypanosomes. In
this context, in 2012 we described an HTS campaign against T.
b. brucei12 which led to the identification of a novel series of
thiazoles with broad spectrum trypanocidal activity13 (T. b.
brucei is a human noninfective strain of the parasite responsible
for HAT and presents as an excellent model for the human
infective strains, namely T. b. rhodesiense and T. b. gambiense).
Such dual activity offers potential development cost advantages
for drugs against both diseases, thus driving us to explore this
chemotype further. In particular, we wished to investigate
whether the thiazole core (Figure 1A) could be replaced by a
In order to understand the SAR around the LHS phenyl
group, substituents varying in size and electronic properties were
introduced at the ortho, meta, and para positions (Scheme 3). 2-
Nitropyrazole (26) was first alkylated with N-(2-bromoethyl)-
phthalimide (27), and then the nitro group was reduced to form
the aminopyrazole 29. A Sandmeyer reaction installed the
bromine at the 3-position, before being reduced and converted
to the ureas 32a−d. Finally, Suzuki coupling reactions were used
to introduce the substituted phenyl group, providing targets
33−57.
All target compounds were subjected to biological evaluation
against T. b. brucei, and a selection were assessed against T. cruzi
parasites. Table 1 represents compounds with RHS modifica-
tions; our starting point, benzamide 8, had moderate activity
(IC50 = 0.61 μM) against T. b. brucei, while an aliphatic ring led
to a loss in activity in 9. Consistent with our previous work,13
urea analogs showed a distinct boost in activity against T. b.
brucei, with the piperidine urea (11) demonstrating an almost
10-fold potency increase compared with both the benzamide
(8), and the slightly smaller pyrrolidine urea (10). The
introduction of a more hydrophilic morpholine moiety (12)
was detrimental for activity, and so was increasing the size of the
ring as in 13. The acyclic urea analog (14) and the isopropyl urea
(15) also had reduced activity, while the carbamate (17) had
modest activity, highlighting the importance of a cyclic urea
substituent at the RHS. The ureas 11 and 13 were also potent
inhibitors of T. cruzi viability. The drop-in potency against this
species compared to T. b. brucei may be a result of poorer
compound penetration through the host mammalian cell
membrane; the T. b. brucei assay is on free parasites, while the
T. cruzi assays are intracellular.
Exploring the tolerance of other groups and space around the
RHS, we investigated sulfonamide 16 and reverse amide 19;
however, these modifications led to complete loss of activity.
Reduction of the amide to amine 20 also led to a complete loss in
activity, highlighting the importance of the carbonyl group.
Thus, we saw sharp SAR trends for the RHS modifications with a
distinct preference for a piperidine urea. This group was thus
maintained in subsequent investigations around other parts of
the molecule.
Modifications to the linker and the LHS were then explored.
Table 2 illustrates that substitution at either position on the
linker led to considerable loss in activity. Table 3 illustrates the
SAR of LHS with substituted phenylpyrazoles. The ortho
position was mostly tolerant to lipophilic groups. The 2-
fluorophenyl analogue 33 was equipotent to the parent
compound 11. A chloro or a methyl group at the ortho position
was also tolerated (for T. b. brucei and T. cruzi); however, the
introduction of the slightly larger 2-methoxy group (36) led to a
40-fold drop in activity and the electron withdrawing cyano
group (37) led to a 80-fold decrease in activity against T. b.
brucei (60-fold decrease against T. cruzi). In summary, small
lipophilic groups, although tolerated at the ortho position, did
not offer any improvement in potency. Fluoro and chloro
substituents were also well tolerated at the meta position, while
nonhalogen groups such as methyl (40) and methoxy (41) led
to a 6-fold and 20-fold decrease in potency, respectively, against
T. b. brucei.
Figure 1. (A) Hit discovered from HTS.12 (B) General structure of
pyrazole compounds synthesized in this study. (SI = selectivity index vs
HEK293 (T. b. brucei) and H9c2 cells (T. cruzi)).
pyrazole (Figure 1B), as thiazoles have a reputation for
toxicogenic potential whereas pyrazoles are privileged structural
motifs in medicinal chemistry.14,15 In addition, the thiazoles
suffer from relatively high rates of phase-I metabolism, curtailing
their clinical potential. Herein we report our SAR investigation
of pyrazole-based compounds (Figure 1B) as potent dual
inhibitors of the viability of T. b. brucei and T. cruzi with
improved metabolic stability and efficacy in a mouse model of
Chagas disease.
Informed by our previous investigations on the series with a
thiazole core,13 we wanted to explore modifications of the amide
moiety (RHS as drawn), linker modifications, and modifications
of the pyrazole 3-substiuent (LHS as drawn) as shown in Figure
1B.
The key primary amine dihydrochloride 6 upon acylation gave
target amides (8, 9, 12) and upon treatment with
benzenesulfonyl chloride gave 16 (Scheme 1). Compound 6
was also converted to the activated urea 7, which was converted
to various ureas (10, 11, 13−15) and carbamate 17. The early
synthetic precursor 3 was saponified and subjected to amide
coupling conditions to obtain the reverse amide 19, and 8 was
reduced to give 20. Scheme 2 shows the synthesis of the linker-
Although, a cyano group also led to loss in activity, it was more
tolerated at the meta position (42) compared with the ortho
position (37). At the para position, the introduction of a fluorine
B
ACS Med. Chem. Lett. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX