The Discovery of a Novel Antimetastatic Bcl3 Inhibitor
- 1 March 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics
- Vol. 20 (5), 775-786
- https://doi.org/10.1158/1535-7163.mct-20-0283
Abstract
The development of anti-metastatic drugs is an urgent healthcare priority for cancer patients, since metastasis is thought to account for around 90% of cancer deaths. Current anti- metastatic treatment options are limited and often associated with poor long-term survival and systemic toxicities. Bcl3, a facilitator protein of the NF-kB family, is associated with poor prognosis in a range of tumor types. Bcl3 has been directly implicated in the metastasis of tumor cells, yet is well tolerated when constitutively deleted in murine models, making it a promising therapeutic target. Here we describe the identification and characterization of the first small molecule Bcl3 inhibitor, by employing a virtual drug design and screening approach against a computational model of the Bcl3-NFkB1(p50) protein-protein interaction. From selected virtual screening hits, one compound (JS6) showed potent intracellular Bcl3-inhibitory activity. JS6 treatment led to reductions in Bcl3-NFkB1 binding, tumor colony formation and cancer cell migration in vitro; and tumor-stasis and anti-metastatic activity in vivo, whilst being devoid of overt systemic toxicity. These results represent a successful application of in silico screening in the identification of protein-protein inhibitors for novel intra-cellular targets, and confirm Bcl3 as a potential anti-metastatic target.Funding Information
- Breast Cancer Research Aid (1166674)
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