Discovery of 2-Phenylamino-imidazo[4,5-h]isoquinolin-9-ones:  A New Class of Inhibitors of Lck Kinase

An imidazo[4,5-h]isoquinolin-7,9-dione (1) was identified as an adenosine 5'-triphosphate competitive inhibitor of lck by high throughput screening. Initial structure-activity relationship studies identified the dichlorophenyl ring and the imide NH as important pharmacophores. A binding model was constructed to understand how 1 binds to a related kinase, hck. These results suggested that removing the gem-dimethyl group and flattening the ring would enhance activity. This was realized by converting 1 to the imidazo[4,5-h]isoquinolin-9-one (20), resulting in an 18-fold improvement in potency against lck and a 50-fold increase in potency in a cellular assay.