Discovery of BRD4 bromodomain inhibitors by fragment-based high-throughput docking.
Zhao, H., Gartenmann, L., Dong, J., Spiliotopoulos, D., Caflisch, A.(2014) Bioorg Med Chem Lett 24: 2493-2496
- PubMed: 24767840 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bmcl.2014.04.017
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
4PCE, 4PCI - PubMed Abstract: 
Bromodomains (BRDs) recognize acetyl-lysine modified histone tails mediating epigenetic processes. BRD4, a protein containing two bromodomains, has emerged as an attractive therapeutic target for several types of cancer as well as inflammatory diseases. Using a fragment-based in silico screening approach, we identified two small molecules that bind to the first bromodomain of BRD4 with low-micromolar affinity and favorable ligand efficiency (0.37 kcal/mol per non-hydrogen atom), selectively over other families of bromodomains. Notably, the hit rate of the fragment-based in silico approach is about 10% as only 24 putative inhibitors, from an initial library of about 9 million molecules, were tested in vitro.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Department of Biochemistry, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: h.zhao@bioc.uzh.ch.