In vivo selective inhibition of TRPC6 by antagonist BI 749327 ameliorates fibrosis and dysfunction in cardiac and renal disease.

Transient receptor potential canonical type 6 (TRPC6) is a nonselective receptor-operated cation channel that regulates reactive fibrosis and growth signaling. Increased TRPC6 activity from enhanced gene expression or gain-of-function mutations contribute to cardiac and/or renal disease. Despite evidence supporting a pathophysiological role, no orally bioavailable selective TRPC6 inhibitor has yet been developed and tested in vivo in disease models. Here, we report an orally bioavailable TRPC6 antagonist (BI 749327; IC50 13 nM against mouse TRPC6, t1/2 8.5-13.5 hours) with 85- and 42-fold selectivity over the most closely related channels, TRPC3 and TRPC7. TRPC6 calcium conductance results in the stimulation of nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) that triggers pathological cardiac and renal fibrosis and disease. BI 749327 suppresses NFAT activation in HEK293T cells expressing wild-type or gain-of-function TRPC6 mutants (P112Q, M132T, R175Q, R895C, and R895L) and blocks associated signaling and expression of prohypertrophic genes in isolated myocytes. In vivo, BI 749327 (30 mg/kg/day, yielding unbound trough plasma concentration ∼180 nM) improves left heart function, reduces volume/mass ratio, and blunts expression of profibrotic genes and interstitial fibrosis in mice subjected to sustained pressure overload. Additionally, BI 749327 dose dependently reduces renal fibrosis and associated gene expression in mice with unilateral ureteral obstruction. These results provide in vivo evidence of therapeutic efficacy for a selective pharmacological TRPC6 inhibitor with oral bioavailability and suitable pharmacokinetics to ameliorate cardiac and renal stress-induced disease with fibrosis.

Synthesis of the benzhydryl motif via a Suzuki-Miyaura coupling of arylboronic acids and 3-chloroacrylonitriles.

[reaction: see text] A simple two-step procedure for synthesizing functionalized benzhydrylamines is described. The first step involves a Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction between arylboronic acids and 3-chloro-3-arylacrylonitriles at 45 degrees C. A variety of boronic acids and substituted acrylonitriles can be used for the reaction. The resulting 3,3-diaryl-substituted acrylonitriles can be converted into their corresponding Boc-protected amines by catalytic hydrogenation.

1,4-hydroxybiradical behavior revealed through crystal structure-solid-state reactivity correlations.

Structure-reactivity correlations for triplet 1,4-hydroxybiradicals in solution are made difficult by the presence of multiple reactive conformers and the possibility of conformation-dependent intersystem crossing. These problems can be overcome by working in the crystalline state, where the conformations of the 1,4-hydroxybiradicals are fixed and determinable by X-ray crystallography of the parent ketones, assuming that hydrogen atom abstraction occurs with little or no change in conformation. This approach is applied to 15 bi- and tricyclic ketones designed to have slightly different biradical conformations, so that the effect of small and incremental changes in geometry on biradical behavior can be tested. The results indicate that, while geometry does have a strong influence on 1,4-hydroxybiradical partitioning between cyclization, cleavage, and reverse hydrogen transfer, a full understanding of the results requires that the strain involved in forming the cyclization products be taken into account.

Boronic acids: new coupling partners in room-temperature Suzuki reactions of alkyl bromides. Crystallographic characterization of an oxidative-addition adduct generated under remarkably mild conditions.

The Suzuki reaction is an exceptionally useful cross-coupling process that has been widely applied in synthetic chemistry, and boronic acids are, by far, the most commonly employed coupling partner. To date, however, no versatile method has been developed for cross-coupling boronic acids with unactivated alkyl (as opposed to aryl or vinyl) electrophiles. This report describes a catalyst system that achieves this objective at room temperature. On the mechanistic side, this study demonstrates that Pd(P(t-Bu)2Me)2 undergoes oxidative addition under surprisingly mild conditions (0 degrees C). The resulting adduct is sufficiently stable toward beta-hydride elimination that it can be structurally characterized, and it is a chemically competent intermediate in the cross-coupling process.