Carboxylesterase Notum is a negative regulator of the Wnt signaling pathway. There is an emerging understanding of the role Notum plays in disease supporting the need to discover new small molecule inhibitors. A crystallographic x-ray fragment screen was performed, which identified fragment hit 1,2,3triazole 7 as an attractive starting point for a structure-based drug design hit-to-lead program. Optimization of 7 identified oxadiazol-2-one 23dd as a preferred example with properties consistent with drug-like chemical space. Screening 23dd in a cell-based TCF/LEF reporter gene assay restored activation of Wnt signaling in the presence of Notum. Mouse pharmacokinetic studies with oral administration of 23dd demonstrated good plasma exposure and partial blood-brain barrier penetration. Significant progress was made in developing fragment hit 7 into lead 23dd (>600-fold increase in activity) making it suitable as a new chemical tool for exploring the role of Notum mediated regulation of Wnt signaling.

The hormone melatonin, secreted from the pineal gland, mediates multiple physiological effects including modulation of Wnt/β‐catenin signalling. The Wnt palmitoleate lipid modification is essential for its signalling activity, while the carboxylesterase Notum can remove the lipid from Wnt and inactivate it. Notum enzyme inhibition can therefore upregulate Wnt signalling. While searching for Notum inhibitors by crystallographic fragment screening, a hit compound N‐[2‐(5‐fluoro‐1H‐indol‐3‐yl)ethyl]acetamide that is structurally similar to melatonin came to our attention. We then soaked melatonin and its precursor N‐acetylserotonin into Notum crystals and obtained high‐resolution structures (≤1.5 Å) of their complexes. In each of the structures, two compound molecules bind with Notum: one at the enzyme's catalytic pocket, overlapping the space occupied by the acyl tail of the Wnt palmitoleate lipid, and the other at the edge of the pocket opposite the substrate entrance. Although the inhibitory activity of melatonin shown by in vitro enzyme assays is low (IC50 75 µmol/L), the structural information reported here provides a basis for the design of potent and brain accessible drugs for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, in which upregulation of Wnt signalling may be beneficial.

The Wnt family of proteins are secreted signaling proteins that play key roles in regulating cellular functions.Recently, carboxylesterase Notum was shown to act as a negative regulator of Wnt signaling by mediating the removal of an essential palmitoleate. Here we disclose two new chemical scaffolds that inhibit Notum enzymatic activity. Our approach was to create a fragment library of 250 acids for screening against Notum in a biochemical assay followed by structure determination by X-ray crystallography. Twenty fragments were identified as hits for Notum inhibition and 14 of these fragments were shown to bind in the palmitoleate pocket of Notum. Optimization of 1-phenylpyrrole 20, guided by structure-based drug design, identified 20z as the most potent compound from this series. Similarly, optimization of 1-phenylpyrrolidine 8 gave acid 26.This work demonstrates that inhibition of Notum activity can be achieved by small, drug-like molecules possessing favorable in vitro ADME profiles.