| First Author | Ando S | Year | 2020 |
| Journal | Sci Rep | Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | 17472 |
| PubMed ID | 33060681 | Mgi Jnum | J:348123 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6798521 | Doi | 10.1038/s41598-020-74346-9 |
| Citation | Ando S, et al. (2020) Discovery of a CNS penetrant small molecule SMN2 splicing modulator with improved tolerability for spinal muscular atrophy. Sci Rep 10(1):17472 |
| abstractText | Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a motor neuron disease, typically resulting from loss-of-function mutations in the survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene. Nusinersen/SPINRAZA, a splice-switching oligonucleotide that modulates SMN2 (a paralog of SMN1) splicing and consequently increases SMN protein levels, has a therapeutic effect for SMA. Previously reported small-molecule SMN2 splicing modulators such as risdiplam/EVRYSDI and its analog SMN-C3 modulate not only the splicing of SMN2 but also that of secondary splice targets, including forkhead box protein M1 (FOXM1). Through screening SMA patient-derived fibroblasts, a novel small molecule, designated TEC-1, was identified that selectively modulates SMN2 splicing over three secondary splice targets. TEC-1 did not strongly affect the splicing of FOXM1, and unlike risdiplam, did not induce micronucleus formation. In addition, TEC-1 showed higher selectively on galactosylceramidase and huntingtin gene expression compared to previously reported compounds (e.g., SMN-C3) due to off-target effects on cryptic exon inclusion and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. Moreover, TEC-1 significantly ameliorated the disease phenotype in an SMA murine model in vivo. Thus, TEC-1 may have promising therapeutic potential for SMA, and our study demonstrates the feasibility of RNA-targeting small-molecule drug development with an improved tolerability profile. |
