Despite advances in anticoagulant drug discovery to establish a new standard of care, represented by Factor Xa (FXa) inhibitors, additional therapies are needed to address the concomitant bleeding risk posed by these agents. Factor XI (FXI) plays a key role in the intrinsic coagulation cascade contributing to thrombin generation and fibril formation, and there is an increasing weight of evidence supporting a comparable efficacy and superior safety profile of FXI-based oral anticoagulants. A novel allosteric mechanism of action (MoA) for inhibiting FXI activation to Factor XIa (FXIa) was discovered by applying an AS-MS-based screen to the FXI zymogen. Biochemical and biophysical characterization of these structurally diverse small-molecule classes confirmed this mode of inhibition as specific to the FXI zymogen, and a high-resolution FXI-inhibitor cocomplex structure identified the binding pocket that is distal to the FXI cleavage site. These FXI Activation Inhibitors were active in translational functional assays, prolonging activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) in human plasma and demonstrating dose-dependent antithrombotic effects in the rabbit arteriovenous-shunt model of thrombosis. The results affirm that FXI Activation Inhibitors are a novel mechanism for the potential treatment of thrombotic disorders.

DNA-binding proteins are promising therapeutic targets but are notoriously difficult to drug. Here, we evaluate a chemoproteomic DNA interaction platform as a complementary strategy for parallelized compound profiling. To enable this approach, we determined the proteomic binding landscape of 92 immobilized DNA sequences. Perturbation-induced activity changes of captured transcription factors in disease-relevant settings demonstrated functional relevance of the enriched subproteome. Chemoproteomic profiling of >300 cysteine-directed compounds against a coverage optimized bead mixture, which specifically captures >150 DNA binders, revealed competition of several DNA-binding proteins, including the transcription factors ELF1 and ELF2. We also discovered the first compound that displaces the DNA-repair complex MSH2-MSH3 from DNA. Compound binding to cysteine 252 on MSH3 was confirmed using chemoproteomic reactive cysteine profiling. Overall, these results suggested that chemoproteomic DNA bead pull-downs enable the specific readout of transcription factor activity and can identify functional "hotspots" on DNA binders toward expanding the druggable proteome.

Physical activity promotes metabolic and cardiovascular health benefits that derive in part from the transcriptional responses to exercise that occur within skeletal muscle and other organs. There is interest in discovering a pharmacologic exercise mimetic that could imbue wellness and alleviate disease burden. However, the molecular physiology by which exercise signals the transcriptional response is highly complex, making it challenging to identify a single target for pharmacological mimicry. The current studies evaluated the transcriptome responses in skeletal muscle, heart, liver, and white and brown adipose to novel small molecule activators of AMPK (pan-activators for all AMPK isoforms) compared to that of exercise. A striking level of congruence between exercise and pharmacological AMPK activation was observed across the induced transcriptome of these five tissues. However, differences in acute metabolic response between exercise and pharmacologic AMPK activation were observed, notably for acute glycogen balances and related to the energy expenditure induced by exercise but not pharmacologic AMPK activation. Nevertheless, intervention with repeated daily administration of short-acting activation of AMPK was found to mitigate hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia in four rodent models of metabolic disease and without the cardiac glycogen accretion noted with sustained pharmacologic AMPK activation. These findings affirm that activation of AMPK is a key node governing exercise mediated transcription and is an attractive target as an exercise mimetic.

The synthesis, selectivity, rat pharmacokinetic profile, and drug metabolism profiles of a series of potent fluoroolefin-derived DPP-4 inhibitors (4) are reported. A radiolabeled fluoroolefin 33 was shown to possess a high propensity to form reactive metabolites, thus revealing a potential liability for this class of DPP-4 inhibitors.

A novel series of oxadiazole based amides have been shown to be potent DPP-4 inhibitors. The optimized compound 43 exhibited excellent selectivity over a variety of DPP-4 homologs.