Identification of novel lysine demethylase 5-selective inhibitors by inhibitor-based fragment merging strategy

Histone lysine demethylases (KDMs) have drawn much attention as targets of therapeutic agents. KDM5 proteins, which are Fe(II)/α-ketoglutarate-dependent demethylases, are associated with oncogenesis and drug resistance in cancer cells, and KDM5-selective inhibitors are expected to be anticancer drugs. However, few cell-active KDM5 inhibitors have been reported and there is an obvious need to discover more. In this study, we pursued the identification of highly potent and cell-active KDM5-selective inhibitors. Based on the reported KDM5 inhibitors, we designed several compounds by strategically merging two fragments for competitive inhibition with α-ketoglutarate and for KDM5-selective inhibition. Among them, compounds 10 and 13, which have a 3-cyano pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidin-7-one scaffold, exhibited strong KDM5-inhibitory activity and significant KDM5 selectivity. In cellular assays using human lung cancer cell line A549, 10 and 13 increased the levels of trimethylated lysine 4 on histone H3, which is a specific substrate of KDM5s, and induced growth inhibition of A549 cells. These results should provide a basis for the development of cell-active KDM5 inhibitors to highlight the validity of our inhibitor-based fragment merging strategy.