Article
Author: Poudel, Yam B. ; Cox, Matthew ; Kumar, Boda Vijay ; Dudhgaonkar, Shailesh ; Schieven, Gary L. ; Gangwar, Sanjeev ; Chowdari, Naidu S. ; He, Liqi ; Critton, David ; Mulligan, Dawn ; Wang, Bei ; Li, Yi-Xin ; Vite, Gregory ; Sivaprakasam, Prasanna ; Cheng, Heng ; Cong, Qiang ; Broekema, Matthais ; Ramakrishnan, Radha ; Gavai, Ashvinikumar V. ; Zhang, Qian ; Mathur, Arvind ; Nagar, Jignesh ; Tarby, Christine ; Donnell, Andrew F. ; Johnson, Walter L. ; Sandhu, Bhupindar ; Zhang, Yong ; Murtaza, Anwar ; Subramani, Lakshumanan ; A. M. Subbaiah, Murugaiah ; Oderinde, Martins S. ; Xie, Chunshan ; O’Malley, Daniel P.
We have designed and developed novel and selective TLR7 agonists that exhibited potent receptor activity in a cell-based reporter assay. In vitro, these agonists significantly induced secretion of cytokines IL-6, IL-1β, IL-10, TNFa, IFNa, and IP-10 in human and mouse whole blood. Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies in mice showed a significant secretion of IFNα and TNFα cytokines. When combined with aPD1 in a CT-26 tumor model, the lead compound showed strong synergistic antitumor activity with complete tumor regression in 8/10 mice dosed using the intravenous route. Structure-activity relationship studies enabled by structure-based designs of TLR7 agonists are disclosed.