Work

Development of Tailless Homologue Receptor (TLX) Agonist Chemical Tools

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: The human tailless homologue receptor (TLX) is a ligand-activated transcription factor acting as a master regulator of neural stem cell homeostasis. Despite its promising potential in neurodegenerative disease treatment, TLX ligands are rare but required to explore phenotypic effects of TLX modulation and for target validation. We have systematically studied and optimized a TLX agonist scaffold obtained by fragment fusion. Structural modification enabled the development of two TLX agonists endowed with nanomolar potency and binding affinity. Both exhibited favorable chemical tool characteristics including high selectivity and low toxicity. Most notably, the TLX agonists comprise different scaffolds and display high chemical diversity, enabling their use as a set for target identification and validation studies.

Source: Journal of Medicinal Chemistry

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c01443

Authors: Emily C. Hank, Minh Sai, Till Kasch, Isabelle Meijer, Julian A. Marschner, Daniel Merk

Institution: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Language: English

Topic: Computational Drug Discovery Methods

Subfield: Computational Theory and Mathematics

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: European Research Council, H2020 European Research Council