Identification of highly potent and selective Cdc25 protein phosphatases inhibitors from miniaturization click-chemistry-based combinatorial libraries.

Cell division cycle 25 (Cdc25) protein phosphatases play key roles in the transition between the cell cycle phases and their association with various cancers has been widely proven, which makes them ideal targets for anti-cancer treatment. Though several Cdc25 inhibitors have been developed, most of them displayed low activity and poor subtype selectivity. Therefore, it is extremely important to discover novel small molecule inhibitors with potent activities and significant selectivity for Cdc25 subtypes, not only served as drugs to treat cancer but also to probe its mechanism in transitions. In this study, miniaturized parallel click chemistry synthesis via CuAAC reaction followed by in situ biological screening were used to discover selective Cdc25 inhibitors. The bioassay results showed that compound M2N12 proved to be the most potent Cdc25 inhibitor, which also act as a highly selective Cdc25C inhibitor and was about 9-fold potent than that of NSC 663284. Moreover, M2N12 showed remarkable anti-growth activity against the KB-VIN cell line, equivalent to that of PXL and NSC 663284. An all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulation approach was further employed to probe the significant selectivity of M2N12 for Cdc25C relative to its structural homologs Cdc25A and Cdc25B. Overall, above results make M2N12 a promising lead compound for further investigation and structural modification.