Dual potent ALK and ROS1 inhibitors combating drug-resistant mutants: Synthesis and biological evaluation of aminopyridine-containing diarylaminopyrimidine derivatives.

To identify ALK and ROS1 dual inhibitors conferring resistance to ALK secondary mutations, especially ‘gatekeeper’ L1196 M and the most predominant ceritinib-resistant G1202R mutations, a series of novel 2,4-diarylaminopyrimidine analogues were designed and synthesized by incorporating 2-alkoxy-6-alicyclic aminopyridinyl motifs. The biological evaluations on cellular and enzymatic assays led to identification of compound F-1, which turned out to be effective against ALKWT, ROS1WT, ALKL1196M and ALKG1202R kinases with IC50 of 2.1 nM, 2.3 nM, 1.3 nM and 3.9 nM, respectively, superior to crizotinib and ceritinib. Moreover, F-1 exhibited significant cytotoxicity on ALK-addicted Karpas299, H2228, and Ba/F3 cell expressing G1202R mutant, as well as ROS1-positive HCC78 cell with IC50 values ranging from 10 nM to 43 nM. Notably, F-1 was capable of suppressing phospho-ALK and its relative downstream signaling pathways, and eventually, inducing cell apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner in Karpas-299 cell. Together, F-1 is validated as a promising ALK/ROS1 dual inhibitor great potential for G1202R ALK mutation cancers.