Antitumor activity of a small-molecule inhibitor of the histone kinase Haspin

Cancer Epigenetics for the 21st Century: What's Next?

The discovery of global DNA hypomethylation events in human tumors in the early 1980s and the identification of CpG island promoter hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes in cancer cells in the mid 1990s opened the door to the current excitement about the contribution of epigenetic disruption to human disease. The recent gigantic advances in technology make it possible to obtain complete DNA methylomes, histonomes, and non-coding RNA transcriptomes for many biological settings and their associated disorders. Furthermore, whole genome sequencing analyses yields an increasing number of mutated epigenetic genes in neoplasia. It is time to sit back, enjoy the show with a little help of friendly bioinformatic tools, and wonder about what will happen next.

Comprehensive assay of kinase catalytic activity reveals features of kinase inhibitor selectivity

Small-molecule protein kinase inhibitors are central tools for elucidating cellular signaling pathways and are promising therapeutic agents. Due to evolutionary conservation of the ATP-binding site, most kinase inhibitors that target this site promiscuously inhibit multiple kinases. Interpretation of experiments utilizing these compounds is confounded by a lack of data on the comprehensive kinase selectivity of most inhibitors. Here we profiled the activity of 178 commercially available kinase inhibitors against a panel of 300 recombinant protein kinases using a functional assay. Quantitative analysis revealed complex and often unexpected kinase-inhibitor interactions, with a wide spectrum of promiscuity. Many off-target interactions occur with seemingly unrelated kinases, revealing how large-scale profiling can be used to identify multi-targeted inhibitors of specific, diverse kinases. The results have significant implications for drug development and provide a resource for selecting compounds to elucidate kinase function and for interpreting the results of experiments that use them.