Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel dithiocarbamate-substituted diphenylaminopyrimidine derivatives as BTK inhibitors

Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) has emerged as an attractive target related to B-lymphocytes dysfunctions, especially hematologic malignancies and autoimmune diseases. In our study, a series of diphenylaminopyrimidine derivatives bearing dithiocarbamate moieties were designed and synthesized as novel BTK inhibitors for treatment of B-cell lymphoma. Among all these compounds, 30ab (IC50 = 1.15 +/- 0.19 nM) displays similar or more potent inhibitory activity against BTK than spebrutinib (IC50 = 2.12 +/- 0.32 nM) and FDA approved drug ibrutinib (IC50 = 3.89 +/- 0.57 nM), which is attributed to close binding of 30ab with BTK predicted by molecular docking. In particular, 30ab exhibits enhanced anti-proliferative activity against B-lymphoma cell lines at the IC50 concentration of 0.357 +/- 0.02 mu M (Ramos) and 0.706 +/- 0.05 mu M (Raji), respectively, almost 10-fold better than ibrutinib and spebrutinib. In addition, 30ab displays stronger selectivity on B-cell lymphoma over other cancer cell lines than spebrutinib. Furthermore, 30ab efficiently blocks BTK downstream pathways and results in apoptosis of cancer cells. In vivo xenograft model evaluation demonstrates the significant efficacy and broad safety margin of 30ab in treatment of B-cell lymphoma. We propose that compound 30ab is a candidate for further study and development based on our current findings.