Screening and Activity Evaluation of Novel BCR-ABL/T315I Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a kind of malignant tumor formed by the clonal proliferation of bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells. BCR-ABL fusion protein, found in more than 90% of patients, is a vital target for discovering anti- CML drugs. Up to date, imatinib is the first BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) approved by the FDA for treating CML. However, the drug resistance problems appeared for many reasons, especially the T135I mutation, a "gatekeeper" of BCR-ABL. Currently, there is no long-term effective and low side effect drug in clinical.

This study intends to find novel TKIs targeting BCR-ABL with high inhibitory activity against T315I mutant protein by combining artificial intelligence technology and cell growth curve, cytotoxicity, flow cytometry and Western blot experiments.

The obtained compound was found to kill leukemia cells, which had good inhibitory efficacy in BaF3/T315I cells. Compound no 4 could induce cell cycle arrest, cause autophagy and apoptosis, and inhibit the phosphorylation of BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase, STAT5 and Crkl proteins.

The results indicated that the screened compound could be used as a lead compound for further research to discover ideal chronic myeloid leukemia therapeutic drugs.