2. Academic Validation
  3. In vivo structure-activity relationship studies support allosteric targeting of a dual specificity phosphatase

In vivo structure-activity relationship studies support allosteric targeting of a dual specificity phosphatase

  • Chembiochem. 2014 Jul 7;15(10):1436-45. doi: 10.1002/cbic.201402000.
Vasiliy N Korotchenko 1,  Manush Saydmohammed,  Laura L Vollmer,  Ahmet Bakan,  Kyle Sheetz,  Karl T Debiec,  Kristina A Greene,  Christine S Agliori,  Ivet Bahar,  Billy W Day,  Andreas Vogt,  Michael Tsang
Affiliations

Affiliation

  • 1 Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, 3501 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (USA); Present address: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Forney Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20910 (USA).
PMID: 24909879 DOI: 10.1002/cbic.201402000
Abstract

Dual specificity Phosphatase 6 (DUSP6) functions as a feedback attenuator of Fibroblast Growth Factor signaling during development. In vitro high throughput chemical screening attempts to discover DUSP6 inhibitors have yielded limited success. However, in vivo whole-organism screens of zebrafish identified compound 1 (BCI) as an allosteric inhibitor of DUSP6. Here we designed and synthesized a panel of analogues to define the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of DUSP6 inhibition. In vivo high-content analysis in transgenic zebrafish, coupled with cell-based chemical complementation assays, identified structural features of the pharmacophore of 1 that were essential for biological activity. In vitro assays of DUSP hyperactivation corroborated the results from in vivo and cellular SAR. The results reinforce the notion that DUSPs are druggable through allosteric mechanisms and illustrate the utility of zebrafish as a model organism for in vivo SAR analyses.

Keywords

BCI; FGF signaling; cognition network technology; high-content screening; zebrafish.

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