Design, Synthesis, Formulation, and Bioevaluation of Trisubstituted Triazines as Highly Selective mTOR Inhibitors for the Treatment of Human Breast Cancer

Abstract

The aberrant activation of the PI3K/mTOR signaling pathway is implicated in various human cancers. Thus, the development of inhibitors targeting mTOR has attracted considerable attention. In this study, we used a structure-based drug design strategy to discover a highly potent and kinase-selective mTOR inhibitor 24 (PT-88), which demonstrated an mTOR inhibitory IC₅₀ value of 1.2 nM without obvious inhibition against another 195 kinases from the kinase profiling screening. PT-88 displayed selective inhibition against MCF-7 cells (IC₅₀: 0.74 μM) with high biosafety against normal cells, in which autophagy induced by mTOR inhibition was implicated. After successful encapsulation in a lipodisc formulation, PT-88 demonstrated favorable pharmacokinetic and biosafety profiles and exerted a large antitumor effect in an MCF-7 subcutaneous bearing nude mice model. Our study shows the discovery of a highly selective mTOR inhibitor using a structure-based drug discovery strategy and provides a promising antitumor candidate for future study and development.