Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of 6-deoxy O-spiroketal C-arylglucosides as novel renal sodium-dependent glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors for the treatment of type 2 diabetes

In this work, aiming at finding a novel, potent, and selective sodium-dependent glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor with good pharmacokinetic profiles for the treatment of diabetes, we focus on modifying the sugar moiety of SGLT2 inhibitors, which dominates the binding with glucose binding site of hSGLT, via removing the C-6 hydroxy group to adjust the physicochemical properties and target-recognition manners of SGLT2 inhibitors. In addition, tofogliflozin containing a special O-spiroketal C-arylglucoside scaffold, displayed good efficacy and bioavailability both in animals and in humans. Therefore, a series of 6-deoxy O-spiroketal C-arylglucosides as novel SGLT2 inhibitors were designed, synthesized, and evaluated in this work. The structure-activity relationship (SAR) research on this novel series and a comprehensive in vitro and in vivo biological evaluation afforded compound 39 with high in vitro hSGLT2 inhibitory activity (IC50 = 4.5 nM), good pharmacokinetic profiles, and more remarkable efficacy in C57BL/6J mice and Sprague-Dawley rats than marketed drug tofogliflozin.