Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of 2,4-pyrimidinediamine derivatives as ALK and HDACs dual inhibitors for the treatment of ALK addicted cancer.

Simultaneous inhibition of histone deacetylases (HDACs) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) could enhance therapeutic activity against ALK addicted cancer cells. Herein, a new series of 2,4-pyrimidinediamine derivatives as ALK and HDACs dual inhibitors were designed, synthesised and evaluated. Compound 12a which possessed good inhibitory potency against ALKwt and HDAC1, exhibited stronger antiproliferative activity than Ceritinib on ALK positive cancer cell lines though inducing cell apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in vitro and in vivo. In addition, the mechanism is further verified by the down-regulation of p-ALK protein, and up-regulation of Acetylated histone 3 (Ac-H3) protein in cancer cells. These results suggested that 12a would be a potential candidate for the ALK addicted cancer treatment.

Discovery of 2,4-pyrimidinediamine derivatives as potent dual inhibitors of ALK and HDAC.

Combination of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor with histone deacetylases (HDAC) inhibitor could exert synergistically anti-proliferative effects on ALK positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) naïve or resistant cells. In this work, we designed and synthesized a series of 2,4-pyrimidinediamine derivatives as dual ALK and HDAC inhibitors based on pharmacophore merged strategy. Among which, compound 10f displayed the most potent and balanced inhibitory activity against ALK (IC50 = 2.1 nM) and HDAC1 (IC50 = 7.9 nM), respectively. In particular, 10f was also potent against the frequently observed Crizotinib-resistant ALKL1196M (IC50 = 1.7 nM) as well as the Ceritinib-resistant ALKG1202R (IC50 = 0.4 nM) mutants. In antiproliferative activity assay, 10f exhibited impressive activity on ALK-addicted cancer cell lines at low micromole concentrations, which was comparable to that of Crizotinib and Ceritinib. Further flow cytometric analysis indicated that 10f could effectively induce cell death via cell apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. Taken together, these results suggested 10f would be a promising lead compound for the ALK-positive NSCLC treatment, especially the Ceritinib- or Crizotinib-resistant NSCLC.