Structure-guided design of a selective BCL-X(L) inhibitor

  • Nat Chem Biol. 2013 Jun;9(6):390-7. doi: 10.1038/nchembio.1246.
Guillaume Lessene  1 ,  Peter E Czabotar ,  Brad E Sleebs ,  Kerry Zobel ,  Kym N Lowes ,  Jerry M Adams ,  Jonathan B Baell ,  Peter M Colman ,  Kurt Deshayes ,  Wayne J Fairbrother ,  John A Flygare ,  Paul Gibbons ,  Wilhelmus J A Kersten ,  Sanji Kulasegaram ,  Rebecca M Moss ,  John P Parisot ,  Brian J Smith ,  Ian P Street ,  Hong Yang ,  David C S Huang ,  Keith G Watson
Affiliations
  • 1. Chemical Biology Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. [email protected]
PMID: 23603658 DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.1246
Abstract

The prosurvival Bcl-2 Family protein BCL-X(L) is often overexpressed in solid tumors and renders malignant tumor cells resistant to Anticancer therapeutics. Enhancing apoptotic responses by inhibiting BCL-X(L) will most likely have widespread utility in Cancer treatment and, instead of inhibiting multiple prosurvival Bcl-2 Family members, a BCL-X(L)-selective inhibitor would be expected to minimize the toxicity to normal tissues. We describe the use of a high-throughput screen to discover a new series of small molecules targeting BCL-X(L) and their structure-guided development by medicinal chemistry. The optimized compound, WEHI-539 (7), has high affinity (subnanomolar) and selectivity for BCL-X(L) and potently kills cells by selectively antagonizing its prosurvival activity. WEHI-539 will be an invaluable tool for distinguishing the roles of BCL-X(L) from those of its prosurvival relatives, both in normal cells and notably in malignant tumor cells, many of which may prove to rely upon BCL-X(L) for their sustained growth.

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