High-Throughput Kinetic Characterization of Irreversible Covalent Inhibitors of KRASG12C by Intact Protein MS and Targeted MRM

Anal Chem. 2022 Jan 18;94(2):1230-1239. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.1c04463. Epub 2022 Jan 6.

Abstract

With recent advances and success in several drugs designed to treat acute and chronic diseases, targeted covalent inhibitors show a resurgence in drug discovery. As covalent inhibition is time-dependent, the preferred quantitative potency metric of irreversible inhibitors is the second-order rate constant kinact/Ki, rather than IC50. Here, we present the development of a mass spectrometry-based platform for rapid kinetic analysis of irreversible covalent inhibitors. Using a simple liquid handling robot for automated sample preparation and a solid-phase extraction-based RapidFire-MS system for rapid MS analysis, kinetic characterization of covalent inhibitors was performed in high throughput both by intact protein analysis and targeted multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). In addition, a bimolecular reaction model was applied to extract kinact/Ki in data fitting, providing tremendous flexibility in the experimental design to characterize covalent inhibitors with various properties. Using KRASG12C inhibitors as a test case, the platform was demonstrated to be effective for studying covalent inhibitors with a wide range of kinact/Ki values from single digit to 3 × 105 M-1 s-1.

MeSH terms

  • Drug Discovery*
  • Kinetics
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins p21(ras)*

Substances

  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins p21(ras)