Automated Solid‐Phase Flow Synthesis for Scaffold Diversification of a High‐Throughput Screening Hit
High-throughput screening (HTS) enables rapid hit identification, yet subsequent analogue synthesis and structure-activity relationship exploration remain constrained by labor-intensive multistep workflows. Here, we describe an automated solid-phase flow synthesis (SPS-flow) platform for diversity-oriented analogue generation of an HTS-derived, non-peptidic small-molecule hit scaffold. A benzodiazepine hit against cyclin-dependent kinase 11B (CDK11B) was selected as a proof-of-concept and translated into a modular 10-11-step synthetic sequence through fragment-guided retrosynthetic design. A sterically tuned triazene linker on 2-chlorotrityl resin was developed to tolerate diverse reaction conditions while enabling traceless cleavage and post-synthetic diazonium diversification, and Chemical Recipe File (CRF)-based control coordinated continuous-, circulation-, and stop-flow operations within a unified automated workflow. The platform enabled the synthesis of 42 benzodiazepine analogues in 5%-33% overall yields, with each sequence completed within approximately 45-48 h from a common resin-bound precursor. Within the explored first-generation design space, the library rapidly defined the synthetic accessibility and preliminary structure-activity landscape of the scaffold under SPS-flow conditions, supporting early triage of the series and demonstrating that SPS-flow can be used as a programmable platform for automated multistep diversification and early-stage drug optimization.
Authors
- Mei Yee 黃美儀 Wong
- Frankie S. Mak
- Jie Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9865-180X)
- Jackie Ang
- Jiale Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8053-9991)
- Hwee Ting Ang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6124-1463)
- Feng Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8182-595X)
- Ronald Toh Kuan Hai
- Zhi‐Qi Zhang
- Yanbin Zhang
- Zhenyang Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5335-3948)
Institutions
- Agency for Science, Technology and Research (SG)
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- Experimental Drug Development Centre (SG)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2026-10-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.1500194
- Primary Topic
- Chemical Synthesis and Analysis
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00