Introduction
Parkinson's disease (PD) was first recorded clinically in 1817, and today, we recognize both motor and non-motor symptoms as characteristic of PD. Unfortunately, to this day, treatments for PD have not generally progressed beyond the symptomatic, relieving symptoms but not targeting the underlying cause(s) of the disease. Furthermore, many currently administered PD therapies yield unwanted side effects. The global prevalence of PD (~10 million) is set to increase, and therefore so has the urgency to develop novel and effective treatments to slow or even reverse the progression of PD (–).
The classic neuropathologic features of PD are the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) and the appearance of intraneuronal Lewy bodies, which are formed in part by aggregated pathologic forms of α-synuclein, a presynaptic protein. Although originally thought to have minimal genetic influence, research over the last two decades has established numerous genetic causes and risk loci for PD (, ). Of the genetic variants that have been associated with PD, the most common genetic cause of familial and sporadic PD is mutation in LRRK2 (PARK8) (, ). Clinically and pathologically, PD caused by LRRK2 mutations is largely indistinguishable from idiopathic PD, except for lower risk of cognitive impairment and greater variation in the type of intraneuronal inclusion.
Transcription and translation of LRRK2 yield a large (286 kDa) multi-domain protein, LRRK2, a member of the Roco superfamily of proteins. LRRK2 is composed of a tandem Ras complex (Roc) GTPase-domain linked to a kinase domain through a carboxy-terminal (COR) sequence (Figure 1A). Outside of the characteristic Roco family motifs, LRRK2 possesses four protein–protein interaction (PPI) domains: WD40, armadillo repeats (ARM), ankyrin repeats (ANK), and the namesake leucine-rich repeats (LRR). These domains likely participate in the regulation of LRRK2 localization (–) and LRRK2 kinase activity (WD40) () as well as mediate changes in structural conformation to active and inactive states (–). LRRK2 has been implicated in numerous cellular processes, including vesicle trafficking, cytoskeletal maintenance, and autophagy, reviewed in (, ). Although the precise physiological function(s) disrupted by LRRK2 missense mutations is yet to be identified, evidence to date suggests that altered activities of its enzymatic domains—kinase and ROC-GTPase—are key contributors (, ). These compelling genetic and biochemical data have led to the hypothesis that eliminating aberrant LRRK2 kinase or ROC-GTPase activity might be an effective therapeutic strategy for people with PD who carry LRRK2 missense mutations.
Figure 1
Targeting the LRRK2 kinase domain
Several missense mutations of LRRK2 are dominantly inherited causes of PD, including G2019S, I2020T, R1441C/G/H, N1437H, and Y1699C, all of which occur in the catalytic domains of LRRK2 (Figure 1). The most prevalent, G2019S-LRRK2, accounts for 6% of familial and 2% of sporadic PD (
G2019S-LRRK2 appears in the kinase domain (Figure 1A), specifically the DYG regulatory motif of the activation loop. As a result, G2019S-LRRK2 possesses hyperactive kinase activity defined by increased Kcat (but not Vmax) when compared to wild-type (WT) LRRK2 (
Substantial PD drug discovery efforts over the last two decades have focused on the development of brain-penetrant LRRK2 kinase inhibitors, yielding multiple small molecules fit for this purpose. Notable and efficacious examples of LRRK2 inhibitors widely deployed in the field include MLi-2 (1), DNL-201 (previously known as GNE-0877) (2), and PF-360 (not shown) developed by Merck (
Typically, kinase inhibitor programs geared toward cancer therapeutics involve short-term doses until remission of tumors. The envisioned medical management of LRRK2-GS carriers would be different. In LRRK2-GS Parkinson's disease, there is a long preclinical stage where a carrier could be identified by genetic testing decades before he or she was symptomatic. Transition to a prodromal stage might be estimated by family history of age of onset or assessed by changes in biomarker or neuroimaging screening that signify brain injury and herald the pending onset of the clinical stage of Parkinson's disease. Ideally, treatment with kinase inhibitors would be considered at the prodromal stage or perhaps earlier, balancing the benefits of starting treatment before onset of symptoms against the risk of likely treatment for the remainder of one's life. Indeed, in this scenario, exposure to drug may include decades of an older individual life, highlighting the importance of safety and tolerability (
Phase 1b clinical trials of two candidates, DNL-201 (2) and DNL-151/BIIB122 (a likely structurally related type I, ATP-competitive kinase inhibitor), reported that short-term administration did not cause adverse events (
It is important to note that the compounds being tested in the above clinical trials are non-selective LRRK2 kinase inhibitors, equivalently inhibiting both mutant and WT kinase and potentially causing untoward on-target effects from suppression of WT kinase activity. Most preclinical data indicate that pharmacologic inhibition of LRRK2 kinase results in pathologic changes to the lung in rodents and non-human primates; however, no associated changes in respiratory function were observed. Furthermore, the major structural change in the lung, hypertrophy of type II pneumocytes, washed out after drug withdrawal. Clinical trials of DNLI-201 NCT03710707 and DNL-151/BIIB122 NCT04056689 included pulmonary monitoring and observed no adverse events in the time frame of the trial (
In an effort to avoid these potential on-target side effects, we and others recently have undertaken the development of brain-penetrant, highly selective G2019S-LRRK2 kinase inhibitors to test the hypothesis that such precision therapeutics might bring similar benefits with less side effects—especially when administered over years to decades—to people with PD driven by G2019S-LRRK2 (
Precision medicine for PD—Targeting the G2019S-LRRK2 kinase domain
From a medicinal chemistry perspective, design of a G2019S-selective kinase inhibitor would seem exceedingly challenging as a single amino acid differentiates WT from G2019S-LRRK2. This would suggest that the kinase domain of the two variants would be near identical. Indeed, recent Cryo-EM data support this assumption, with the authors suggesting that hyperactive G2019S-LRRK2 kinase activity may be kinetic in nature rather than structural (
Although molecular modeling efforts based on such G2019S-LRRK2 surrogates have resulted in extremely selective compounds, such as (3) (
Conclusion
The preponderance of evidence has identified the G2019S-LRRK2 hyperactive kinase function as pathogenic in the context of PD. Searching for inhibitors of this enzymatic function should therefore be considered a worthwhile target that may bring benefit to G2019S-LRRK2 carriers in the first instance, with the potential for downstream therapeutic benefits as well. At the very least, a clinically useful G2019S-selective, brain-penetrant inhibitor could be used to elucidate the complex molecular biology of mutant LRRK2 and thus be enormously beneficial to PD precision medicine development. How this mutation affects LRRK2 the cellular functions remains unclear. To date, we have observed that this single amino acid mutation creates a structural effect impacting kinase kinetics, conformation, and substrate preference. The challenges involved in developing a selective G2019S-LRRK2 kinase inhibitor perhaps have led to more emphasis on non-selective inhibitor development, even while questions still remain regarding the safety and efficacy of non-specific LRRK2 inhibitors. As described herein, data-driven approaches utilizing both computational modeling and medicinal chemistry have overcome some of these challenges to identify potent, selective, and brain-penetrant G2019S-selective kinase inhibitors. Ultimately, G2019S-LRRK2 has been shown to be a valid therapeutic target, with established links to PD pathogenesis and extensive evidence suggesting inhibitors of the mutant LRRK2 kinase domain may yield powerful, precision therapeutics. As the first LRRK2 kinase inhibitors (non-selective for genetic variants) are progressing through clinical trials, time will tell whether such compounds are able to fulfill the unmet medical need for safe and effective PD treatments. Including more precise, mutant-selective LRRK2 inhibitors to our arsenal will potentially provide safer medications for mutation carriers who face an increased risk of PD and beyond.
Funding
This study was funded by the Alexander & Eva Nemeth Foundation, the Sergey Brin Family Foundation, and the Farmer Family Foundation Parkinson's Research Initiative.
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Statements
Author contributions
RKL, RJN, and TJM: figure design, interpretation of data, drafting the submitted material, and critical review. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Acknowledgments
We thank Kathleen Montine for editorial assistance.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Summary
Keywords
LRRK2, kinase, selectivity, inhibitors, Parkinson's disease
Citation
Lesniak RK, Nichols RJ and Montine TJ (2022) Development of mutation-selective LRRK2 kinase inhibitors as precision medicine for Parkinson's disease and other diseases for which carriers are at increased risk. Front. Neurol. 13:1016040. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2022.1016040
Received
10 August 2022
Accepted
06 October 2022
Published
26 October 2022
Volume
13 - 2022
Edited by
Firas H. Kobeissy, University of Florida, United States
Reviewed by
Norbert Brüggemann, University of Lübeck, Germany; Olivier Rascol, INSERM CIC1436 Centre d'Investigation Clinique de Toulouse, France
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© 2022 Lesniak, Nichols and Montine.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Robert K. Lesniak r.k.lesniak@stanford.eduR. Jeremy Nichols rjnichols@stanford.eduThomas J. Montine tmontine@stanford.edu
This article was submitted to Experimental Therapeutics, a section of the journal Frontiers in Neurology
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.