The free fatty acid receptor 1 (FFA1) has emerged as an attractive anti-diabetic target that mediates glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. Several FFA1 agonists have been reported, but many of them possessed somewhat high lipophilicity and/or molecular weight. Herein, we describe the identification of sulfone-carboxylic acid moiety with the multiple advantages of reducing lipophilicity, cytotoxicity and β-oxidation associated with compound 2. Further structure-activity relationship study based on the previleged scaffolds led to the discovery of 2-{(4-[(2'-chloro-[1,1'-biphenyl]-3-yl)methoxy]phenyl)sulfonyl}acetic acid (compound 20), which showed a better balance than compound 2 in terms of physicochemical properties, cytotoxicity profiles and pharmacokinetic properties. Subsequent in vivo studies demonstrated that compound 20 robustly improves the glucose tolerance both in normal and type 2 diabetic models without the risk of hypoglycemia. Compared to the high risk of TAK-875 induced liver toxicity, there was no significant adverse effects such as hepatic and renal toxicity were observed in the chronic toxicity studies of compound 20 even at the higher dose.

游离脂肪酸受体1（FFA1）已成为介导葡萄糖刺激的胰岛素分泌的有吸引力的抗糖尿病靶标。已经报道了几种FFA1激动剂，但是其中许多具有较高的亲脂性和/或分子量。在这里，我们描述了具有减少化合物2相关的亲脂性，细胞毒性和β-氧化的多重优势的砜-羧酸部分的鉴定。基于旧支架的进一步结构-活性关系研究导致发现了2-{（（4-[（2'-氯-[1,1'-联苯] -3-基）甲氧基]苯基]磺酰基}乙酸（化合物20），显示出比化合物2更好的平衡在理化性质，细胞毒性特征和药代动力学性质方面。随后的体内研究表明，化合物20在正常模型和2型糖尿病模型中均能显着提高葡萄糖耐量，且无低血糖风险。与TAK-875诱发肝毒性的高风险相比，即使在较高剂量下，在化合物20的慢性毒性研究中也没有观察到明显的不良反应，例如肝和肾毒性。