The design, synthesis and anti-tumor mechanism study of new androgen receptor degrader.

Targeted protein degradation using small molecules is a novel strategy for drug development. In order to solve the problem of drug resistance in the treatment of prostate cancer, proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTAC) was introduced into the design of anti-prostate cancer derivatives. In this work, we synthesized two series of selective androgen receptor degraders (SARDs) containing the hydrophobic degrons with different linker, and then investigated the structure-activity relationships of these hybrid compounds. Most of the synthesized compounds exhibited moderate to good activity against all the cancer cell lines selected. Among them, compound A9 displayed potent inhibitory activity against LNCaP prostate cancer cell line with IC 50 values of 1.75 μM, as well as excellent AR degradation activity. Primary mechanism studies elucidated compound A9 arrested cell cycle at G0/G1 phase and induced a mild apoptotic response in LNCaP cells. Further study indicated that the degradation of AR was mediated through proteasome-mediated process. For all these reasons, compound A9 held promising potential as anti-proliferative agent for the development of highly efficient SARDs for drug-resistance prostate cancer therapies. Two series of selective androgen receptor degraders (SARDs) containing the hydrophobic degrons with different linker were identified. Compound A9 displayed the most potent inhibition against LNCaP and showed excellent AR degradation efficacy. Image 1 • Two series of novel SARDs with hydrophobic tagging have been discovered. • The best compound A9 displayed potent inhibitory activity against LNCaP cell lines and excellent AR degradation activity. • Primary mechanism study indicated that the degradation of AR is mediated throughproteasome-mediated process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]