Vinylpyridine as a Tunable Covalent Warhead Targeting C797 in EGFR.

To further facilitate the discovery of cysteine reactive covalent inhibitors, there is a need to develop new reactive groups beyond the traditional acrylamide-type warheads. Herein we describe the design and synthesis of covalent EGFR inhibitors that use vinylpyridine as the reactive group. Structure-based design identified the quinazoline-containing vinylpyridine 6 as a starting point. Further modifications focused on reducing reactivity resulted in substituted vinyl compound 12 , which shows high EGFR potency and good kinase selectivity, as well as significantly reduced reactivity compared to the starting compound 6 , confirming that vinylpyridines can be applied as an alternative cysteine reactive warhead with tunable reactivity.