Pyrazolidine-3,5-dione derivatives as potent non-steroidal agonists of farnesoid X receptor: virtual screening, synthesis, and biological evaluation

The identification of a novel pyrazolidine-3,5-dione based scaffold hit compound as Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) partial or full agonist has been accomplished by means of virtual screening techniques. A series of pyrazolidine-3,5-dione derivatives (1a-u and 7) was designed, synthesized, and evaluated by a cell-based luciferase transactivation assay for their agonistic activities against FXR. Most of them showed agonistic potencies and 10 of them (1a, 1b, 1d-f, 1j, 1n, 1t, 5b, and 7) exhibited lower EC(50) values than the reference drug CDCA. Molecular modeling studies for the representative compounds 1a, 1d, 1f, 1j, 1n, 1u, 5b, and 7 were also presented. The novel structural scaffold has provided a new direction for finding potent and selective FXR partial and full agonists (referred to as 'selective bile acid receptor modulators', SBARMs).