Protein kinases are the family of attractive enzyme targets for drug design with relevance to cancer biology. Serine arginine protein kinase 1 (SRPK1) is responsible for the phosphorylation of serine/arginine (SR)-rich proteins. Alternative Splicing Factor/Splicing Factor 2 (ASF/SF2) involved in mRNA editing. ASF/SF2 is over expressed in many cancers and plays crucial roles in the cell survival. Phosphorylation of ASF/SF2 is decisive for its functions in cancer. In search of potential anticancer therapeutic agents for attenuating phosphorylation of ASF/SF2, we have explored specific and potential inhibitors of SRPK1 from natural and drug like compounds databases using in-silico methods. Compound ZINC02154892 (C02) was found to be the most potent inhibitor for SRPK1. In-vitro molecular and cell biology studies have shown C02 as a potent and specific inhibitor of phosphorylation of ASF/SF2 and cell survival in leukemic cell line. Structural analysis of SRPK1 with compound C02 revealed a unique pattern of binding targeting ATP binding site along with inhibiting recruitment of ASF/SF2 by SRPK1. The possibilities of compound C02 to be used as a lead compound paving way for the development of potent and specific inhibitors of SRPK1 for designing of novel potential anticancer inhibitor is inferred from the current studies.
Keywords: MTT assay; flow cytometery; splicing inhibitor; structure based drug design; virtual screening.