Abstract
Mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase-1 (MKP-1) has proved to be an attractive target for the development of therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. We report the first example for a successful application of the structure-based virtual screening to identify the novel inhibitors of MKP-1. It is shown that the efficiency of virtual screening can be enhanced significantly by the incorporation of a new solvation energy term in the scoring function. The newly found inhibitors have desirable physicochemical properties as a drug candidate and reveal a moderate potency with IC50 values ranging from 20 to 50 μM. Therefore, they deserve a consideration for further development by structure–activity relationship studies to optimize the inhibitory activities. Structural features relevant to the stabilization of the inhibitors in the active site of MKP-1 are discussed in detail.





Similar content being viewed by others
References
Jeffery KL, Camps M, Rommel C, Mackay CR (2007) Targeting dual-specificity phosphatases: manipulating MAP kinase signalling and immune responses. Nat Rev Drug Discov 6:391–403
Magi-Galluzzi C, Mishra R, Fiorentino M, Montironi R, Yao H, Capodieci P, Wishnow K, Kaplan I, Stork PJ, Loda M (1997) Mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase 1 is overexpressed in prostate cancers and is inversely related to apoptosis. Lab Invest 76:37–51
Liao Q, Guo J, Kleeff J, Zimmermann A, Büchler MW, Korc M, Friess H (2003) Down-regulation of the dual-specificity phosphatase MKP-1 suppresses tumorigenicity of pancreatic cancer cells. Gastroenterology 124:1830–1845
Denkert C, Schmitt WD, Berger S, Reles A, Pest S, Siegert A, Lichtenegger W, Dietel M, Hauptmann S (2002) Expression of mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase-1 (MKP-1) in primary human ovarian carcinoma. Int J Cancer 102:507–513
Kikuchi K, Nakamura K, Shima H (1999) Protein phosphatases and cancer. Curr Top Biochem Res 1:75–87
Vogt A, Tamewitz A, Skoko J, Sikorski RP, Giuliano KA, Lazo JS (2005) The benzo[c]phenanthridine alkaloid, sanguinarine, is a selective, cell-active inhibitor of mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase-1. J Biol Chem 280:19078–19086
Lazo JS, Nunes R, Skoko JJ, de Oliveira PEQ, Vogt A, Wipf P (2006) Novel benzofuran inhibitors of human mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase-1. Bioorg Med Chem 14:5643–5650
Cao S, Murphy BT, Foster C, Lazo JS, Kingston DGI (2009) Bioactivities of simplified adociquinone B and naphthoquinone derivatives against Cdc25B, MKP-1, and MKP-3 phosphatases. Bioorg Med Chem 14:2276–2281
Shoichet BK, Leach AR, Kuntz ID (1999) Ligand solvation in molecular docking. Proteins 34:4–16
Jeong DG, Jung SK, Yoon TS, Woo EJ, Kim JH, Park BC, Ryu SE, Kim SJ (2009) Crystal structure of the catalytic domain of human MKP-2 reveals a 24-mer assembly. Proteins 76:763–767
Baker D, Sali A (2001) Protein structure prediction and structural genomics. Science 294:93–96
Sali A, Blundell TL (1993) Comparative protein modelling by satisfaction of spatial restraints. J Mol Biol 234:779–815
Jeffrey GA (1997) An introduction to hydrogen bonding. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Lipinski CA, Lombardo F, Dominy BW, Feeney PJ (1997) Experimental and computational approaches to estimate solubility and permeability in drug discovery and development settings. Adv Drug Deliver Rev 23:3–25
Gasteiger J, Rudolph C, Sadowski J (1990) Automatic generation of 3D atomic coordinates for organic molecules. Tetrahedron Comput Method 3:537–547
Gasteiger J, Marsili M (1980) Iterative partial equalization of orbital electronegativity-a rapid access to atomic charges. Tetrahedron 36:3219–3228
Morris GM, Goodsell DS, Halliday RS, Huey R, Hart WE, Belew RK, Olson AJ (1998) Automated docking using a Lamarckian genetic algorithm and an empirical binding free energy function. J Comput Chem 19:1639–1662
Park H, Lee J, Lee S (2006) Critical assessment of the automated AutoDock as a new docking tool for virtual screening. Proteins 65:549–554
Cornell WD, Cieplak P, Bayley CI, Gould R, Merz KM Jr, Ferguson DM, Spellmeyer DC, Fox T, Caldwell J, Kollman PA (1995) A second generation force field for the simulation of proteins, nucleic acids, and organic molecules. J Am Chem Soc 117:5179–5197
Park H, Jeon YH (2007) Cubic equation governing the outer-region dielectric constant of globular proteins. Phys Rev E 75:021916
Stouten PFW, Frömmel C, Nakamura H, Sander C (1993) An effective solvation term based on atomic occupancies for use in protein simulations. Mol Simul 10:97–120
Kang H, Choi H, Park H (2007) Prediction of molecular solvation free energy based on the optimization of atomic solvation parameters with genetic algorithm. J Chem Inf Model 47:509–514
Sippl MJ (1993) Recognition of errors in three-dimensional structures of proteins. Proteins 17:355–362
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Grant No. K11061 from the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine (KIOM). A Hanyang University Internal Grant also supported this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Park, H., Jeon, JY., Kim, S.Y. et al. Identification of novel inhibitors of mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase-1 with structure-based virtual screening. J Comput Aided Mol Des 25, 469–475 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10822-011-9432-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10822-011-9432-2