Staurosporine-derived inhibitors broaden the scope of analog-sensitive kinase technology.
Lopez, M.S., Choy, J.W., Peters, U., Sos, M.L., Morgan, D.O., Shokat, K.M.(2013) J Am Chem Soc 135: 18153-18159
- PubMed: 24171479 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/ja408704u
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
4MCV - PubMed Abstract: 
Analog-sensitive (AS) kinase technology is a powerful approach for studying phospho-signaling pathways in diverse organisms and physiological processes. The key feature of this technique is that a kinase-of-interest can be mutated to sensitize it to inhibitor analogs that do not target wild-type (WT) kinases. In theory, this enables specific inhibition of any kinase in cells and in mouse models of human disease. Typically, these inhibitors are identified from a small library of molecules based on the pyrazolopyrimidine (PP) scaffold. However, we recently identified a subset of native human kinases, including the Ephrin A kinase family, that are sensitive to commonly used PP inhibitors. In an effort to develop a bioorthogonal AS-kinase inhibitor and to extend this technique to PP-sensitive kinases, we sought an alternative inhibitor scaffold. Here we report the structure-based design of synthetically tractable, potent, and extremely selective AS-kinase inhibitors based on the natural product staurosporine. We demonstrate that these molecules, termed staralogs, potently target AS kinases in cells, and we employ X-ray crystallography to elucidate their mechanism of efficacy. Finally, we demonstrate that staralogs target AS mutants of PP-sensitive kinases at concentrations where there is little to no inhibition of native human kinases. Thus, staralogs represent a new class of AS-kinase inhibitors and a core component of the chemical genetic tool kit for probing kinase-signaling pathways.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology, University of California , San Francisco, California 94143, United States.