We report a novel negamycin derivative TCP-1109 (13x) which serves as a potent readthrough drug candidate against nonsense-associated diseases. We previously demonstrated that TCP-112 (7), a nor-compound of native 3-epi-deoxynegmaycin, showed a higher readthrough activity than (+)-negamycin. In the present study, we performed a structure-activity relationship (SAR) study of compound 7 focused on its 3-amino group in an effort to develop a more potent readthrough compound. Introduction of a variety of natural or unnatural amino acids to the 3-amino group gave us the more potent derivative 13x which has about four times higher readthrough activity than 7 in a cell-based assay using a premature termination codon of TGA derived from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The activity was dose-dependent and relatively selective for TGA. However, the activities for TAG and TAA were also higher than those of (+)-negamycin and 7. Moreover, compound 13x showed significant cell-based readthrough activity for several nonsense mutations derived from other nonsense-associated diseases. It is suggested that 13x has the potential to be a readthrough drug useful for the treatment of many kinds of nonsense-associated diseases.
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