Structure-activity relationship study of non-steroidal NPC1L1 ligands identified through cell-based assay using pharmacological chaperone effect as a readout.

Niemann-Pick type C1-like 1 (NPC1L1) is an intestinal cholesterol transporter that is known to be the target of the cholesterol absorption inhibitor ezetimibe. We previously discovered steroidal NPC1L1 ligands by using a novel cell-based assay that employs pharmacological chaperone effect as a readout. Those steroid derivatives bound to a site different from both the sterol-binding domain and the ezetimibe-binding site, implying that they may be a novel class of NPC1L1 inhibitors with a distinct mode of action. As an extension of that work, we aimed here to find non-steroidal NPC1L1 ligands, which may be better candidates for clinical application than steroidal ligands, by using the same assay to screen our focused library of ligands for liver X receptor (LXR), a nuclear receptor that recognizes oxysterols as endogenous ligands. Here we describe identification of a novel class of NPC1L1 ligands with a ring-fused quinolinone scaffold, and an analysis of the structure-activity relationships of their derivatives as NPC1L1 ligands.