Design strategies, SAR, and mechanistic insight of Aurora kinase inhibitors in cancer.

Aurora kinases (AURKs) are serine/threonine protein kinases that play a critical role during cell proliferation. Three isoforms of AURKs reported in mammals include AURKA, AURKB, AURKC, and all share a similar C-terminal catalytic domain with differences in their subcellular location, substrate specificity, and function. Recent research reports indicate an elevated expression of these kinases in several cancer types highlighting their role as oncogenes in tumorigenesis. Inhibition of AURKs is an attractive strategy to design potent inhibitors modulating this target. The last few years have witnessed immense research in the development of AURK inhibitors with few FDA approvals. The current clinical therapeutic regime in cancer is associated with severe side-effects and emerging resistance to existing drugs. This has been the key driver of research initiatives toward designing more potent drugs that can potentially circumvent the emerging resistance. This review is a comprehensive summary of recent research on AURK inhibitors and presents the development of scaffolds, their synthetic schemes, structure-activity relationships, biological activity, and enzyme inhibition potential. We hope to provide the reader with an array of scaffolds that can be selected for further research work and mechanistic studies in the development of new AURK inhibitors.