Development of New Deoxycytidine Kinase Inhibitors and Noninvasive in Vivo Evaluation Using Positron Emission Tomography

Combined inhibition of ribonucleotide reductase and deoxycytidine kinase (dCK) in multiple cancer cell lines depletes deoxycytidine triphosphate pools leading to DNA replication stress, cell cycle arrest, and apoptosis. Evidence implicating dCK in cancer cell proliferation and survival stimulated our interest in developing small molecule dCK inhibitors. Following a high throughput screen of a diverse chemical library, a structure–activity relationship study was carried out. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) using ¹⁸F-L-1-(2′-deoxy-2′-<b>F</b>luoro<b>A</b>rabinofuranosyl) <b>C</b>ytosine (¹⁸F-L-FAC), a dCK-specific substrate, was used to rapidly rank lead compounds based on their ability to inhibit dCK activity <i>in vivo.</i> Evaluation of a subset of the most potent compounds in cell culture (IC₅₀ = ∼1–12 nM) using the ¹⁸F-L-FAC PET pharmacodynamic assay identified compounds demonstrating superior in vivo efficacy