Article
Author: Mukherjee, Siddhartha ; Woods, Susan L. ; Wang, Xiaomin ; Zhavoronkov, Alex ; Chang, Aeson ; Fenix, Kevin ; Barratt, Kate ; Wei, Heping ; Ramsay, Robert G. ; Gee, Yi Sing ; Heriot, Alexander ; Tin, Teresa ; Sammour, Tarik ; Lawrence, Matthew J. ; Posch, Markus ; Lu, Hongfu ; de Nys, Rebekah ; Syphers, Joel L. ; Huang, Fei ; Baell, Jonathan B. ; Liu, Shen ; Narasimhan, Vignesh ; Che, Da Qing ; Wright, Josephine A. ; Vrbanac, Laura ; Silva, Tharindie N. ; Maddern, Guy J. ; Priebbenow, Daniel L. ; Sloan, Erica K. ; Kelter, Gerhard ; Worthley, Daniel L. ; Gao, Fan ; Maier, Armin ; Mudududdla, Ramesh ; Kaur, Harleen
A library of potent WEE1 kinase inhibitors was synthesized based on the discontinued frontrunner clinical candidate AZD1775 (1), many of which were more selective for WEE1 over an undesirable off-target of 1, the kinase PLK1. When tested against patient-derived organoids (PDOs) grown from TP53-mutated colorectal cancer (CRC) peritoneal metastases, 34 (IC50 value of 62 nM) exhibited stronger efficacy than 1 (IC50 value of 120 nM) and the best-in-class clinical candidate ZN-c3 (IC50 value of 127 nM). Against primary CRC PDOs with TP53-WT, 34 significantly enhanced DNA damage, replication stress and apoptosis compared to 1, as well as demonstrated high selectivity over patient-matched normal healthy colon PDOs, highlighting a potential therapeutic window for cancer treatment. Overall, this investigation provides critical insight into several potent WEE1 inhibitors that exhibited exceptional efficacy against CRC PDOs and is the first to utilize a PDO platform to assess their effect on healthy and malignant cell viability.