Article
Author: Cross, Jason B. ; Johnson, Troy ; Do, Mary K. Geck ; Johnson, Rebecca ; Rodriguez, Christian ; Mustachio, Lisa Maria ; Cox, Joshua B. ; Phan, Phuc ; Thapar, Roopa ; Nair, Vinay ; Bardenhagen, Jennifer ; Mendiola, Andrea J. ; Hickey, Anna M. ; Nagy, Edith ; Tran, Tuyen ; Heffernan, Timothy ; Jiang, Yongying ; Soth, Michael J. ; Marsalek, Joseph ; Fawver, Janelle ; Reyna, Naphtali ; Yu, Fei ; Wu, Qi ; Jones, Philip ; Shepard, Hannah ; Mandal, Pijus
NRAS G12D mutations are predominantly found in melanoma and hematologic malignancies, and there is an unmet need for developing targeted therapies against this oncogene. Herein, we describe the structure-guided development of IACS-56676, a selective and potent NRAS G12D inhibitor useful as a tool compound for further studies of NRAS biology. The development process revealed key insights into gaining selectivity between NRAS and KRAS proteins. Notably, stabilization of the p-loop and substitution toward Leu 95 while maintaining key interactions with Asp12, Gly60, and Asp69 improved NRAS G12D potency and resulted in selectivity against wild-type KRAS/non-responder.