W. Michael Seganish

Potent and Selective Amidopyrazole Inhibitors of IRAK4 That Are Efficacious in a Rodent Model of Inflammation

IRAK4 is a critical upstream kinase in the IL-1R/TLR signaling pathway. Inhibition of IRAK4 is hypothesized to be beneficial in the treatment of autoimmune related disorders. A screening campaign identified a pyrazole class of IRAK4 inhibitors that were determined by X-ray crystallography to exhibit an unusual binding mode. SAR efforts focused on the identification of a potent and selective inhibitor with good aqueous solubility and rodent pharmacokinetics. Pyrazole C-3 piperidines were well tolerated, with N-sulfonyl analogues generally having good rodent oral exposure but poor solubility. N-Alkyl piperidines exhibited excellent solubility and reduced exposure. Pyrazoles possessing N-1 pyridine and fluorophenyl substituents were among the most active. Piperazine 32 was a potent enzyme inhibitor with good cellular activity. Compound 32 reduced the in vivo production of proinflammatory cytokines and was orally efficacious in a mouse antibody induced arthritis disease model of inflammation.

Facile access to enantiomerically pure bis(sulfoxide) chelates of late transition metals

Herein contains a report detailing the synthesis and characterization of six, chiral, late-transition metal complexes all chelated using R S ,R S -bis( p -tolylsulfinyl)ethane, R S ,R S -BTSE. All complexes revealed S -ligation to the metal with an expected contraction of the sulfinyl-oxygen bond length when compared to free sulfoxide. The presented data serve to illustrate three attractive, yet unexplored, aspects of the bis(sulfoxide) bidentate ligand: (i) bidentate sulfoxide ligands, when chelated to a metal, give rise to complexes that are pseudo-C 2 symmetric in terms of both sterics and electronics, (ii) the sulfoxides, unlike typical N-, P-, and O-based ligands, present the coordination sphere with a significant amount of steric and electronic mismatch, and (iii) the data support the fact that sulfoxides are moderate σ-donors and good-to-excellent π-acceptors – an aspect that should afford such metal chelates with a wide degree of reactivity. Finally, X-ray crystallographic experiments, coupled with an extensive CCDC search, provide an opportunity to establish the following ligand-ranking scheme for bidentate ligands spanned by an ethylene bridge, R 2 N– 2 P–, based on the trans influence of chloride salts of Pt(II).