The serine/threonine kinase AKT/PKB has a critical role in the regulation of cell proliferation. Because AKT signaling is deregulated in numerous human malignancies, it has become an attractive anticancer drug target. A number of small molecule AKT kinase inhibitors have been developed; however, severe side effects have prevented their use in clinical trials. To find inhibitors of AKT1 signaling with principally novel mechanism of action, we carried out a live cell-based screen for small molecule inhibitors of physical interaction between AKT1 and its primary activator PDPK1. The screen revealed one molecule-NSC156529, which downregulated AKT1 signaling, efficiently decreased the proliferation of human cancer cells in vitro, and substantially inhibited the growth of prostate tumor xenografts in vivo. Interestingly, the treated tumor xenografts exhibited higher expression level of normal prostate differentiation markers but did not show augmented cell death, suggesting that the identified compound primarily enhances the differentiation of malignant cells toward normal prostate epithelium and thus poses as an attractive lead compound for developing novel antitumor agents with less cytotoxic side effects.
©2015 American Association for Cancer Research.