Otava, a chemical and drug-discovery company, has announced that it has designed selective CK2 inhibitors.
The design of specific small molecules that are able to block or inhibit the function of macromolecular targets responsible for the development of a certain disorder is the classic and most widely used approach in modern drug therapeutics, such as in cancer treatment.
In must be ascertained to what criteria the cancer drug target must correspond before it could be accepted as a promising object for searching for an appropriate anti-cancer drug, according to the company.
Ideally, it must be disfunctioned in cancer cells and essential for cell surviving (target 'switching-off' must lead to cell death).
The target's activity must not be compensated by other macromolecules and the target must be presented only in tumour cells.
Protein kinase CK2 corresponds to three out of these four criteria.
Since 2005, this kinase was generally accepted as pharmacological tool of proven high therapeutic value.
The oncogenic potential of protein kinase CK2 and its involvement in virally mediated pathologies and inflammatory disorders has led to an increasing number of studies aimed at the discovery of selective CK2 inhibitors.
Otava has designed selective CK2 inhibitors that are efficient at low micromolar concentrations.
The company's researchers spanned computer-based molecular modelling with the chemical synthesis of compounds, which were further tested in vitro to investigate their ability to bind to and affect the activity of CK2.
The binding modes of inhibitors that target the ATP-binding site of CK2 were also studied.
Some recently discovered patent-free inhibitors were organised in clusters of similar compounds: Prohit compound sets.
Otava offers Prohit sets of CK2 inhibitors to academic and commercial laboratories worldwide for use in drug-discovery programmes targeting protein kinases.
The company also plans to extend Prohit sets to other protein kinase targets.
