Luciferin and Derivatives as a Dyrk Selective Scaffold for the Design of Protein Kinase Inhibitors.
Rothweiler, U., Eriksson, J., Stensen, W., Leeson, F., Engh, R.A., Svendsen, J.S.(2015) Eur J Med Chem 94: 140
- PubMed: 25768698 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmech.2015.02.035
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
4D1X, 4D1Z - PubMed Abstract: 
D-Luciferin is widely used as a substrate in luciferase catalysed bioluminescence assays for in vitro studies. However, little is known about cross reactivity and potential interference of D-luciferin with other enzymes. We serendipitously found that firefly luciferin inhibited the CDK2/Cyclin A protein kinase. Inhibition profiling of D-luciferin over a 103-protein kinase panel showed significant inhibition of a small set of protein kinases, in particular the DYRK-family, but also other members of the CMGC-group, including ERK8 and CK2. Inhibition profiling on a 16-member focused library derived from D-luciferin confirms that D-luciferin represents a DYRK-selective chemotype of fragment-like molecular weight. Thus, observation of its inhibitory activity and the initial SAR information reported here promise to be useful for further design of protein kinase inhibitors with related scaffolds.
Organizational Affiliation: 
The Norwegian Structural Biology Centre, Department of Chemistry, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway.