< Back to previous page

Project

Validation of autophagy induction as a therapeutic strategy: from drug discovery and preclinical evaluation to safety investigation and biomarker research.

Autophagy is a ubiquitous process that removes unnecessary or dysfunctional cellular components from the cytoplasm. Defective autophagy is currently emerging as a hallmark of many diseases. In this framework, there is strong interest in pharmacological agents that stimulate autophagy (so-called 'autophagy inducers'), as a potential treatment for these diseases. The unequivocal validation of autophagy induction as a therapeutic strategy, however, is far from established. Many obstacles persist, including the lack of druglike, selective autophagy inducers and readily translatable preclinical results that are obtained with such compounds. In addition, the availability of reliable biomarkers for autophagy and additional fundamental safety data for the approach, would strongly contribute to its validation. This proposal addresses existing limitations in the state-of-the art in the domain. We have recently carried out a phenotypic High-Throughput Screen (HTS) on a curated compound library. Members in this library were preselected from different providers based on in silico druglikeness scores. One compound family that was identified in the screen and maximally validated prior to this application, will be further optimized chemically for autophagy induction potency and biopharmaceutical properties. The biopharmaceutical profile of the best new representative will be thoroughly characterized in vivo, both involving PET-based pharmacokinetics and phenotypic pharmacodynamics. The compound will subsequently be investigated in two mouse models of diseases characterized by defective autophagy: atherosclerosis and Charcot-Marie-Tooth periferal neuropathy. In addition, we propose to investigate whether autophagy induction is intrinsically sufficiently safe as a therapeutic strategy. Existing hypotheses that autophagy induction could accelerate tumorigenesis and/or tumor growth will be investigated in vivo. In the same framework, metabolomics will be relied on to monitor eventual cellular stress fingerprints that result from chronic or long-term autophagy stimulation. Finally, metabolomics will also be relied on to identify cellular biomarkers of autophagy induction. The latter will be validated in plasma samples of animals that were systemically treated with autophagy inducers. Combined, we expect the knowledge and tools that are generated by this proposal to have strong impact on the field of autophagy research and ongoing endeavors to validate autophagy induction as a therapeutic strategy.
Date:1 Jan 2021 →  Today
Keywords:AUTOPHAGY, METABOLOMICS, ANIMAL MODELS, NEW DRUG DESIGN
Disciplines:Biomarker discovery, Non-clinical studies, Drug discovery and development not elsewhere classified, Medicinal chemistry, Pharmacology not elsewhere classified, Toxicology and toxinology not elsewhere classified