Yukio Toyoda

In Vitro and In Vivo Antibacterial Activities of TAK-083, an Agent for Treatment of Helicobacter pylori Infection

ABSTRACT The antibacterial activity of TAK-083 was tested against 54 clinical isolates of Helicobacter pylori and was compared with those of amoxicillin, clarithromycin, and metronidazole. The growth-inhibitory activity of TAK-083 was more potent than that of amoxicillin, clarithromycin, or metronidazole (the MICs at which 90% of the strains are inhibited were 0.031, 0.125, 64, and 8 μg/ml, respectively). The antibacterial activity of TAK-083 was highly selective against H. pylori; there was a >30-fold difference between the concentration of TAK-083 required to inhibit the growth of H. pylori and that required to inhibit the growth of common aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. Exposure ofH. pylori strains to TAK-083 at the MIC or at a greater concentration resulted in an extensive loss of viability. When four H. pylori strains were successively subcultured in the medium containing subinhibitory concentrations of TAK-083, no significant change in the MICs of this compound was observed. TAK-083 strongly inhibited the formation of tryptophanyl-tRNA in H. pylori while exhibiting little effect on the same system in eukaryotes. TAK-083 was efficacious in the treatment of gastric infection caused by H. pylori in Mongolian gerbils. The results presented here indicate that TAK-083 is a promising candidate for the treatment of H. pylori infection.

Design, Synthesis, and Evaluation of the Highly Selective and Potent G-Protein-Coupled Receptor Kinase 2 (GRK2) Inhibitor for the Potential Treatment of Heart Failure

A novel class of therapeutic drug candidates for heart failure, highly potent and selective GRK2 inhibitors, exhibit potentiation of β-adrenergic signaling in vitro studies. Hydrazone derivative 5 and 1,2,4-triazole derivative 24a were identified as hit compounds by HTS. New scaffold generation and SAR studies of all parts resulted in a 4-methyl-1,2,4-triazole derivative with an N-benzylcarboxamide moiety with highly potent activity toward GRK2 and selectivity over other kinases. In terms of subtype selectivity, these compounds showed enough selectivity against GRK1, 5, 6, and 7 with almost equipotent inhibition to GRK3. Our medicinal chemistry efforts led to the discovery of 115h (GRK2 IC50 = 18 nM), which was obtained the cocrystal structure with human GRK2 and an inhibitor of GRK2 that potentiates β-adrenergic receptor (βAR)-mediated cAMP accumulation and prevents internalization of βARs in β2AR-expressing HEK293 cells treated with isoproterenol. Therefore, 115h appears to be a novel class of therapeutic for heart failure treatment.

An enzyme immunoassay for human lymphotoxin.

A highly sensitive and specific enzyme immunoassay (EIA) for human lymphotoxin (hLT) has been developed. The assay is based upon a sandwich system employing two kinds of anti-hLT antibodies with neutralizing activity. One of them was mouse monoclonal antibody raised against Escherichia coli-derived recombinant hLT with a deletion of 20 amino-terminal amino acids and used as labelled antibody. The other was rabbit antibody raised against the carboxyl-terminal portion of hLT and used as solid-phase antibody. The EIA employing such a combination was able to detect less than 50 pg/ml of hLT, showing that this method was approximately 5-10 times higher sensitivity than the conventional bioassay employing L929 cell-lysis. The mean recovery of hLT added to serum specimens was 101% and the coefficients of variation were 3.3-7.8% (intra-assay) and 2.9-17.2% (interassay). There was a good correlation between the present EIA and the bioassay (r = 0.93).

Identification of PARP14 inhibitors using novel methods for detecting auto-ribosylation

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARPs) use nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) as a co-substrate to transfer ADP-ribose when it releases nicotinamide as the metabolized product. Enzymes of the PARP family play key roles in detecting and repairing DNA, modifying chromatin, regulating transcription, controlling energy metabolism, and inducing cell death. PARP14, the original member of the PARP family, has been reported to be associated with the development of inflammatory diseases and various cancer types, making it a potential therapeutic target. In this study, we purified the macrodomain-containing PARP14 enzyme and established an assay for detecting the auto-ribosylation activity of PARP14 using RapidFire high-throughput mass spectrometry and immunoradiometric assay using [3H]NAD+. Subsequently, we performed high-throughput screening using the assays and identified small-molecule hit compounds, which showed NAD+-competitive and PARP14-selective inhibitory activities. Co-crystal structures of PARP14 with certain hit compounds revealed that the inhibitors bind to the NAD+-binding site. Finally, we confirmed that the hit compounds interacted with intracellular PARP14 by a cell-based protein stabilization assay. Thus, we successfully identified primary candidate compounds for further investigation.