MESFER AL SHAHRANI, REEM GAHTANI, MOHAMMAD ABOHASSAN, MOHAMMAD ALSHAHRANI, YASSER ALRAEY, AYED DERA, MOHAMMAD RAJEH ASIRI, PRASANNA RAJAGOPALAN^*

Oncology Research, Vol.32, No.2, pp. 251-259, 2024, DOI:10.32604/or.2023.043139

Abstract Gastric cancers are caused primarily due to the activation and amplification of the EGFR or HER2 kinases resulting in cell proliferation, adhesion, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Conventional therapies are ineffective due to the intra-tumoral heterogeneity and concomitant genetic mutations. Hence, dual inhibition strategies are recommended to increase potency and reduce cytotoxicity. In this study, we have conducted computational high-throughput screening of the ChemBridge library followed by in vitro assays and identified novel selective inhibitors that have a dual impediment of EGFR/HER2 kinase activities. Diversity-based High-throughput Virtual Screening (D-HTVS) was used to screen the whole ChemBridge small molecular library against EGFR and… More > Graphic Abstract

ZIYU LIU^1,2, AKIKO OKANO^3,4, EMIKO SANADA^1,3,4, YUSHI FUTAMURA^3,4, TOSHIHIKO NOGAWA^3,5, KOSUKE ISHIKAWA⁶, KENTARO SEMBA^7,8, JIANG LI⁹, XIAOMENG LI¹⁰, HIROYUKI OSADA^3,4,11,*, NOBUMOTO WATANABE^1,2,4,*

Oncology Research, Vol.31, No.5, pp. 655-666, 2023, DOI:10.32604/or.2023.030248

Abstract

Myc belongs to a family of proto-oncogenes that encode transcription factors. The overexpression of c-Myc causes many types of cancers. Recently, we established a system for screening c-Myc inhibitors and identified antimycin A by screening the RIKEN NPDepo chemical library. The specific mechanism of promoting tumor cell metastasis by high c-Myc expression remains to be explained. In this study, we screened approximately 5,600 microbial extracts using this system and identified a broth prepared from Streptomyces sp. RK19-A0402 strongly inhibits c-Myc transcriptional activity. After purification of the hit broth, we identified compounds closely related to the aglycone of cytovaricin and had… More > Graphic Abstract

XINTONG LIU^1,2,3, EMIKO SANADA^1,3,4, JIANG LI⁵, XIAOMENG LI⁶, HIROYUKI OSADA^1,4,7,*, NOBUMOTO WATANABE^1,2,3,*

Oncology Research, Vol.31, No.5, pp. 645-654, 2023, DOI:10.32604/or.2023.030240

Abstract β-transducin repeat-containing protein (β-TrCP) is an F-box protein subunit of the E3 Skp1-Cullin-F box (SCF) type ubiquitin-ligase complex, and provides the substrate specificity for the ligase. To find potent ligands of β-TrCP useful for the proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) system using β-TrCP in the future, we developed a high-throughput screening system for small molecule β-TrCP ligands. We screened the chemical library utilizing the system and obtained several hit compounds. The effects of the hit compounds on in vitro ubiquitination activity of SCF^β-TrCP1 and on downstream signaling pathways were examined. Hit compounds NPD5943, NPL62020-01, and NPL42040-01 inhibited the TNFα-induced degradation of… More > Graphic Abstract

FAISAL HASSAN TOBEIGEI¹, REEM M. GAHTANI², AHMAD SHAIKH², AMER AL ALI³, NADER KAMELI^4,5, HOSSAM KAMLI², PRASANNA RAJAGOPALAN^2,6,*

Oncology Research, Vol.29, No.5, pp. 305-318, 2021, DOI:10.32604/or.2022.025187

Abstract Malignant melanoma is characterized by both genetic and molecular alterations that activate phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), and RAS/BRAF pathways. In this work, through diversity-based high-throughput virtual screening we identified a lead molecule that selectively targets PI3K and BRAF^V600E kinases. Computational screening, Molecular dynamics simulation and MMPBSA calculations were performed. PI3K and BRAF^V600E kinase inhibition was done. A375 and G-361 cells were used for in vitro cellular analysis to determine antiproliferative effects, annexin V binding, nuclear fragmentation and cell cycle analysis. Computational screening of small molecules indicates compound CB-006-3 selectively targets PI3KCG (gamma subunit), PI3KCD (delta subunit) and BRAF^V600E. Molecular dynamics simulation… More >