Targeting lipid–protein interaction to treat Syk-mediated acute myeloid leukemia

Indira Singaram, Ashutosh Sharma, Shashank Pant, Muyun Lihan, Mi Jeong Park, Melissa Pergande, Pawanthi Buwaneka, Yusi Hu, Nadim Mahmud, You Me Kim, Stephanie Cologna, Vladimir Gevorgyan, Irum Khan, Emad Tajkhorshid, Wonhwa Cho*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

Membrane lipids control the cellular activity of kinases containing the Src homology 2 (SH2) domain through direct lipid–SH2 domain interactions. Here we report development of new nonlipidic small molecule inhibitors of the lipid–SH2 domain interaction that block the cellular activity of their host proteins. As a pilot study, we evaluated the efficacy of lipid–SH2 domain interaction inhibitors for spleen tyrosine kinase (Syk), which is implicated in hematopoietic malignancies, including acute myeloid leukemia (AML). An optimized inhibitor (WC36) specifically and potently suppressed oncogenic activities of Syk in AML cell lines and patient-derived AML cells. Unlike ATP-competitive Syk inhibitors, WC36 was refractory to de novo and acquired drug resistance due to its ability to block not only the Syk kinase activity, but also its noncatalytic scaffolding function that is linked to drug resistance. Collectively, our study shows that targeting lipid–protein interaction is a powerful approach to developing new small molecule drugs. [Figure not available: see fulltext.].

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)239-250
Number of pages12
JournalNature Chemical Biology
Volume19
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2023

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (grant nos. R35GM122530 to W.C., GM 120281 to V.G., P41-GM104601 and R01-GM123455 to E.T. and R01-NS114413 to S.C.). I.K. acknowledges University of Illinois Cancer Center’s 2020 Pilot Program (grant no. 2020-PP-01). E.T. thanks Blue Waters at National Center for Supercomputing Applications for providing computing resources and Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (grant no. MCA06N060). E.T. is also grateful to the School of Chemical Sciences Scientific Software Program for access to the Schrödinger Suite.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology
  • Cell Biology

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